NAND mobile devices capable of updating firmware or software in a manner analogous to NOR mobile devices

• US 7,797,693 B1
• Filed: 12/13/2004
• Issued: 09/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Gustafson, James P., Chen, Shao-Chun
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen; Wei Y
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chen; Qing
• Application Number:
  US11/010,913
• Time in Patent Office: 2,101 Days
• Field of Search: 717168-178, 711/100, 711/103
• US Class Current: 717/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1433 during software upgrading

Abstract

A network with mobile devices supports update of firmware and/or software from one version to another version, the firmware or software being stored in non-volatile memory of the mobile handset, such as a NAND flash memory. In one embodiment, a firmware stored in the NAND non-volatile memory is updated by an update agent in a fault tolerant mode.

Claims

1. A mobile electronic device having a plurality of processors, each processor having its own address space, the mobile electronic device comprising:

a plurality of NAND memory units communicatively coupled to and associated with the plurality of processors in one-to-one correspondence;

an update agent executable on one of the plurality of processors, the update agent capable of updating code in the NAND memory unit corresponding to the one of the plurality of processors;

an update package resident in the NAND memory unit corresponding to the one of the plurality of processors;

the update agent employing the update package to update the code;

a plurality of random access memory (RAM) units communicatively coupled to and associated with the plurality of processors in one-to-one correspondence; and

the one of the plurality of processors capable of transferring the update agent from the corresponding NAND memory unit into the corresponding RAM memory unit and of executing the update agent in the corresponding RAM memory unit to update the code to the mobile electronic device using less than full page NAND write blocks in order to be consistent with NOR memory unit updates to mobile electronic devices and to accommodate non-direct access to the plurality of NAND memory units and to accommodate bad blocks within the plurality of NAND memory units.

2. The mobile electronic device of claim 1 comprising:

the update agent being resident in the corresponding NAND memory unit associated with the one of the plurality of processors.

3. The mobile electronic device of claim 1 comprising:

a boot loader resident in the NAND memory unit corresponding to the one of the plurality of processors; and

the boot loader copying the update agent to a RAM memory unit corresponding to the one of the plurality of processors and starting execution of the update agent.

4. The mobile electronic device of claim 1 comprising:

an operating system (OS) image resident in the NAND memory unit corresponding to the one of the plurality of processors; and

the update agent employing the update package in updating the operating system (OS) image.

5. The mobile electronic device of claim 4 comprising:

a user data section in the NAND memory unit corresponding to the one of the plurality of processors;

the operating system (OS) image mounting in the NAND memory unit corresponding to the one of the plurality of processors when the operating system (OS) image is run; and

the update agent refraining from updating the user data section while updating the operating system (OS) image.

6. The mobile electronic device of claim 1 comprising:

kernel code resident in the NAND memory unit corresponding to an other of the plurality of processors; and

the one of the plurality of processors instructing the other of the plurality of processors to boot and load the kernel code to a RAM memory unit of the other of the plurality of processors for execution.

7. The mobile electronic device of claim 6 comprising:

a plurality of relocatable modules resident in the NAND memory unit of the other of the plurality of processors; and

the kernel code capable of loading and invoking at least one of the plurality of relocatable modules into the RAM memory unit of the other of the plurality of processors.

8. The mobile electronic device of claim 7 comprising:

a local update agent resident in the NAND memory unit of the other of the plurality of processors; and

the local update agent causing the kernel code to load the at least one of the plurality of relocatable modules into the RAM memory unit of the other of the plurality of processors, update the at least one of the plurality of relocatable modules in a corresponding RAM memory unit, and store the updated relocatable module back in the NAND memory unit of the other of the plurality of processors.

9. A mobile electronic device having a first processor and a second processor each having its own address space, the mobile electronic device comprising:

a first NAND memory unit associated with and communicatively coupled to the first processor;

a second NAND memory unit associated with and communicatively coupled to the second processor;

each of the first processor and the second processor having an associated update agent capable of updating code;

the first NAND memory unit and the second NAND memory unit each comprising a boot loader, an operating system (OS) image, and a user data section;

a first update package resident in the first NAND memory unit of the first processor for use by the update agent of the first processor;

the update agent for the second processor is resident in the first NAND memory unit of the first processor;

the second processor is associated with and communicatively coupled to a random access memory (RAM) memory unit; and

the update agent for the second processor is transferred from the first NAND memory unit of the first processor to the RAM memory unit for execution by the second processor to update the code to the mobile electronic device using less than full page NAND write blocks in order to be consistent with NOR memory unit updates to mobile electronic devices and to accommodate non-direct access to the first NAND memory unit and the second NAND memory unit and to accommodate bad blocks within the first NAND memory unit and the second NAND memory unit.

10. The mobile electronic device of claim 9 wherein the first NAND memory unit of the first processor and the second NAND memory unit of the second processor also comprise multiple update sections.

11. The mobile electronic device of claim 10 wherein each of the update sections comprises an image section located prior to a reservoir section.

12. The mobile electronic device of claim 10 wherein a logical size of each of the update sections is less than a physical size of each of the update sections.

13. The mobile electronic device of claim 10 wherein the update agents associated with the first processor and the second processor track used and unused blocks in the update sections of the corresponding first and second NAND memory units, in addition to bad blocks in the update sections.

14. The mobile electronic device of claim 10 wherein the update agents associated with the first processor and the second processor employ a scan phase to locate bad blocks in the associated update sections, a first transform phase to back up at least a portion of the contents of the associated update sections before updating the at least a portion of the contents of the associated update sections, a transfer phase to copy the at least a portion of the contents of the associated update sections to an associated RAM memory unit, and a second transform phase to update the copied at least a portion of the contents of the associated update sections in the associated RAM memory unit.

15. The mobile electronic device of claim 9 comprising:

a second update package resident in the first NAND memory unit of the first processor for use by the update agent of the second processor; and

the mobile electronic device communicating the second update package from the first NAND memory unit of the first processor to the second NAND memory unit of the second processor for use by the update agent of the second processor.

16. The mobile electronic device of claim 15 comprising:

an operating system (OS) image resident in the first NAND memory unit of the first processor; and

the update agent associated with the first processor employing the first update package to update the operating system (OS) image.

17. The mobile electronic device of claim 15 wherein the first update package is stored in a reserved space in the first NAND memory unit of the first processor.

18. The mobile electronic device of claim 17 wherein the first update package is stored in the reserved space using a basic NAND access mechanism (BNAM) method.

19. The mobile electronic device of claim 15 wherein the first update package is stored in the user data section in the first NAND memory unit of the first processor.

20. The mobile electronic device of claim 15 wherein the update agents associated with the first processor and the second processor track unused blocks in the corresponding first and second NAND memory units so that a binary image can be adjusted at run time for bad blocks during an update process.

21. The mobile electronic device of claim 9 wherein the update agent associated with the first processor tracks unused blocks in the corresponding first NAND memory unit so that the operating system (OS) image can be updated at run time despite the discovery of bad blocks during the update.

22. The mobile electronic device of claim 9 comprising:

an update risk evaluator that evaluates the possibility of a successful update by at least one of the first update agent and the second update agent based upon the total number of known bad blocks in the corresponding first and second NAND memory units being updated.