JPH11259162A - Suspending/resuming method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To speedily start up a system at the starting of resuming by saving data needed for system management in a cache memory at the time of suspending and powering on the cache memory during the suspending mode. SOLUTION: Once a suspending event is detected, the contents of the cache memory 21 are flashed back to a system memory 22 to update the system memory 22 and then the contents of the system memory 22 are transferred to a fixed disk drive 51 and saved as necessary data. The cache memory 22 is switched into a diagnostic mode, the contents of the registers of a CPU 1 and other volatile registers are stored in the cash memory 22, and the cache memory 22 and resuming event detecting circuit 501 are powered during the suspending mode while other parts are powered off. Consequently, the system can speedily be started up at a start of resuming.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a suspend / resume method for an information processing system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a laptop computer (lap top p
ersonal computer) and notebook computer (notebook
In order to avoid wasting power while performing work on a battery-equipped personal computer (such as a personal computer), when suspending work (suspend), a method of saving power consumption called a suspended state is adopted. . The suspend state is roughly classified into suspend to RA (suspend to RA).
M) and suspend to disk.

[0005] FIG. 5 shows a process of suspending to RAM.
FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an apparatus for a suspend / resume method, in which 11 is a CPU, 12 is a memory controller, 13 is a processor bus, 121 is a cache memory, 122 is a system memory,
1221 is an SMM provided in the system memory 122
(System Management Memory) area, 14 is a system bus, 15 is a system controller, 1501 is a resume event detection circuit, 151 is a fixed disk drive,
16 is an I / O device, 161 is an input / output device, 17 is a video control device, 171 is a video memory, and 172 is a display device. 5, the SMM area 1221
Parts other than the resume event detection circuit 1501 are constituent parts of a general information processing apparatus, and are well-known parts, and thus description thereof will be omitted.

When a suspend event is detected in the apparatus shown in FIG. 5, if the control method of the cache memory 121 is the copy-back method, the contents of the cache memory 121 are flashed back to the system memory 122 and are required at the time of resuming. After storing the contents of the CPU registers and the volatile registers of the memory controller 12, the system controller 15, the video controller 17, and the I / O device 16 in an area called an SMM area 1221 of the system memory 122, Power is supplied to the memory 171 and the resume event detection circuit 1501 in the system controller 15 to hold data, and the power supply to other devices is stopped. In FIG. 5, devices to which power is supplied at the time of suspend are shaded.

When a resume event detection circuit 1501 detects a resume event by means of a contact of an operation switch, a timer or the like, the information stored in the SMM area 1221 is turned on after the power of the device in the power-off state is turned on. Restore to other volatile registers and restore to the state immediately before entering suspend state.

[0006] FIG. 6 shows a suspend (suspe
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an apparatus for performing (nd to disk). In the figure, 31, 32, 33, 321, 322, 3221,
34, 35, 3501, 351, 36, 361, 37,
371 and 372 are 11, 12, 13, and 1 in FIG.
21, 122, 1221, 14, 15, 1501, 15
1, 16, 161, 17, 171 and 172 represent the same parts, and duplicate description will be omitted.

When a suspend event is detected in the apparatus shown in FIG. 6, if the control method of the cache memory 321 is the copy-back method, the contents of the cache memory 321 are flashed back to the system memory 322, which is required at the time of resuming. After storing the contents of the CPU registers and the volatile registers of the memory controller 32, the system controller 35, the video controller 37, and the I / O device 36 in an area called an SMM area 3221 of the system memory 322, the contents of the system memory 322 are stored. Then, the contents of the video memory 371 are transferred to a previously secured area of the fixed disk, and power is supplied to the resume event detection circuit 3501 in the system controller 35 so that the resume event detection circuit 3501 is kept operable. Devices other than To stop the supply of.

A resume event is generated by a contact of an operation switch or a timer. When a resume event is detected by a resume event detection circuit 3501,
After the power of the device in the power-off state is turned on and the content stored in the fixed disk drive 351 is transferred to the system memory 322 and the video memory 371, S
The information in the MM area 3221 is restored to the CPU register and other nonvolatile registers, and restored to the state immediately before entering the suspend state.

[0009]

The conventional methods shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 have the following problems. The first problem of the method shown in FIG. 5 is that the power consumption at the time of suspending becomes large. Since the power is supplied to the video memory 171 and the system memory 122 at the time of suspending, the power is required. In particular, as the capacity of the video memory 171 and the system memory 122 increases, the power consumption of the device to be backed up increases. And the power consumption during the suspension increases. A second problem is that the SM memory is stored in the system memory 122 to save the contents of the CPU register and other volatile registers.
An M area 1221 is provided, and there is a problem that this area cannot be used as an original system memory.

In the method shown in FIG. 6, there is a problem that the recovery time at the time of resume is long. That is, at the time of resuming, the contents of the CPU register and other volatile registers, that is, the contents of data necessary for System Management are transferred from the fixed disk drive 351 to the system memory 32.
After reading to 2, the CPU register and other volatile registers have to be restored, so that more time is required than the method shown in FIG. Also, the SMM area 32
21 is stored in the system memory 322, and there remains a problem that this area cannot be used as the original system memory.

Although various methods have been disclosed for the suspend / resume method, a method applicable to a personal computer with a built-in battery or a personal computer requiring energy saving is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-131082.
There is a "computer employing a suspend / resume scheme" (hereinafter referred to as "prior art document") disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H11-209,036. In the method of this prior art document, "first search means for searching for a block having information that is in use and exists only on the main storage device in a block of the main storage device at the time of a power-off request";"Second search means for searching for a block in which the same information exists in a device other than the main storage device", "save means for saving information of the block searched by the first search means to the nonvolatile storage device", The information of the block searched by the search means 2 is invalidated, and when the reference to the information held by the block is requested again after the power is restored, the information is deleted from a device other than the main storage device in which the information exists. There is a problem that the suspend / resume process is complicated by providing a “means for transferring to a necessary place”.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems in the conventional method, and to provide a suspend / resume method which consumes less power at the time of suspending and recovers quickly to a resume state.

[0013]

According to the present invention, at the time of suspension, data necessary for system management is saved in the cache memory, and power is supplied to the cache memory during the suspension, so that when the resume is started, Speeds up system startup and reduces power consumption during suspension.

That is, the suspend / resume method of the present invention provides a CPU, a system memory, a memory controller for controlling the system memory, and a part of the storage contents of the system memory in a state where it can be easily accessed from the CPU. A suspend / resume method for an information processing system comprising: a separately stored cache memory; a fixed disk drive that is a non-volatile memory; and a system controller that controls the fixed disk drive, wherein when a suspend event is detected, Swapping out the contents of the cache memory to the system memory, transferring the contents of the system memory to a fixed disk drive after this step, switching the cache memory to the diagnostic mode, CPU registers and other volatile Storing the contents of the power supply in the cache memory, leaving the power supply to the cache memory and the power supply of the resume detection circuit, and shutting off the other power supplies. Starting, the CP stored in the cache memory
Restoring the contents of the U register and other volatile registers to each register, transferring the contents of the system memory stored in the fixed disk drive to the system memory, switching the cache memory from the diagnostic mode to the normal mode, It is comprised including.

Further, when the writing method of the cache memory of the information processing system is write-through, the step of swapping out the contents of the cache memory to the system memory is omitted.

When a video memory exists in the information processing system, a step of transferring the video memory to the fixed disk drive is inserted after the step of transferring the contents of the system memory to the fixed disk drive. After the step of transferring the contents of the system memory stored in the disk drive to the system memory, a step of transferring the contents of the video memory stored in the fixed disk drive to the video memory is inserted.

A specific area of the cache memory is reserved in advance as an SMM (System Management Memory) space for storing data stored in the cache memory at the time of suspension.

[0018] The suspend event is generated by an operator.

Further, the suspend event is generated by a timer.

Further, the resume event is generated by an operator.

Further, the resume event is generated by a timer.

[0022]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG.
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 21, 22, 51, 61, 71,
72, 501 are respectively 11, 12, 13, 1 in FIG.
4, 15, 16, 17, 121, 122, 151, 16
1, 171, 172, and 1501 are the same as those in FIG. 1 is an SMM area provided in the cache memory 21 and corresponds to the SMM area 1221 provided in the system memory 122 in FIG. Also, reference numerals 511 and 51 in FIG.
2 is the same as 3511 and 3512 in FIG.

FIG. 2 is a format diagram showing an example of a memory mapping between the system memory 22 and the cache memory 21 shown in FIG. 1, and addresses 0000, 0000h (h is 16
To indicate that it is in decimal notation) to 1000,0000h
Is allocated to the system memory space 101, and C00
From 0000h to E00000h is allocated to the cache memory 103 space. A part of the space 103 is used as the SMM space 104. In the normal mode using the cache memory, the software accesses the system memory area 101 without being aware of the cache memory, and when the cache memory is to be accessed, the hardware accesses the cache memory. When the cache memory is directly addressed and read / written to diagnose the cache memory, the mode is switched to the diagnostic mode to directly access the cache memory. The access to the SMM area 104 is set to the diagnostic mode, and the cache memory is directly accessed.

Next, each step of the suspend / resume method in the circuit of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. The suspend event is input by the operator operating a switch or is generated by a timer. When the suspend event is detected by the CPU 1 in step S-1, the operation of shifting to the suspend state is started. Flashing the contents of the memory 21 back to the system memory 22
To update. However, if the writing method of the cache memory 21 is the copy-back (store-in) method, the contents of the system memory 22 may not be updated as the contents of the cache memory 21 in step S-2, and thus need to be performed. However, when the write method of the cache memory 21 is write-through, the contents of the system memory 22 and the contents of the cache memory 21 always match, so that step S-2 can be omitted.

In step S-3, the system memory 22
Is transferred to the system memory transfer area 511 secured in the fixed disk drive 51 in advance. In step S-4, the contents of the video memory 71 are transferred to the video memory transfer area 512 secured in the fixed disk drive 51 in advance. In step S-5, the cache memory 21 is switched to the diagnostic mode. In step S-6, the contents of the CPU register and other volatile registers are stored in the cache memory 21. In step S-7, the resume event detection circuit 501 in the system controller 5
And the power supply to other than the cache memory 21 is stopped.

Since the resume event is also generated by the operator or the timer, when the resume event detection circuit 501 in the system controller 5 detects this (step S-10), the operation shifts to the resume operation, and the process proceeds to step S10.
At -20, power supply to the entire system is started, and step S
At -30, the contents of the CPU register and other volatile registers stored in the cache memory (memory controller 2, system controller 5, I / O device 6,
Volatile registers of the video display device 7 and the like, and these registers are system management memory (System Management Memory).
gement Memory) is restored to each register. At this time, the cache memory 21 is still in the diagnostic mode. In step S-40, the contents of the system memory transfer area 511 in the fixed disk drive 51 are read by the memory controller 2 and the system controller 5 restored to an operable state, and loaded into the system memory 22. In step S-50, the contents of the video memory transfer area 512 in the fixed disk drive 51 are read by the video controller 7 and the system controller 5 restored to the operable state, and loaded into the video memory 71. In step S-60, the cache memory 21 is returned from the diagnostic mode to the normal mode, and restored so that the cache memory 21 operates as the original cache memory.

[0027]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, in the suspended state, only the power of the resume event detection circuit 501 and the cache memory 21 needs to be supplied, so that the conventional method shown in FIG. As described above, the resume event detection circuit 1501 and the system memory 12
2. Compared with the method of supplying power to the video memory 171,
Power consumption can be reduced. Further, at the time of step S-30 shown in FIG. 4, the entire operation of the system becomes possible, so that the contents saved in the system memory transfer area 3511 are temporarily stored in the system memory transfer area 3511 as in the conventional method shown in FIG. 322 and then load the SMM area 322
Restoration by the resume operation can be performed more quickly than in the case where the system operation is enabled for the first time by loading the register of the CPU and other volatile registers from the beginning. Further, the SMM area 1221 in FIG. 5 and the SMM area 32 in FIG.
Since the SMM area does not exist in the system memory as in 21, it is not necessary to secure the SMM area in the system memory in advance.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a memory mapping of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing operation steps of a suspend process of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing operation steps of a resume process of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional method.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing another example of the conventional method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 CPU 2 Memory controller 3 Processor bus 4 System bus 5 System controller 6 I / O device 7 Video controller 21 Cache memory 22 System memory 51 Fixed disk drive 61 I / O device 71 Video memory 72 Display device 211 SMM area 501 Resume event detection Circuit 511 System memory transfer area 512 Video memory transfer area

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A CPU, a system memory, a memory controller for controlling the system memory, a cache memory for separately storing a part of storage contents of the system memory in a state where the CPU can easily access the contents, and a non-volatile memory. Suspend / resume of an information processing system including a fixed disk drive that is a volatile memory and a system controller that controls the fixed disk drive.
nd / resume) method, wherein when a suspend event is detected, the contents of the cache memory are swapped out to the system memory.After this step, the contents of the system memory are transferred to a fixed disk drive. Transferring the cache memory to a diagnostic mode, storing the contents of a CPU register and other volatile registers in the cache memory, leaving a power supply for the cache memory and a power supply for a resume detection circuit, and other power supplies Shutting down, detecting a resume event during suspend, starting the power supply of the entire system, and reading the contents of the CPU registers and other volatile registers stored in the cache memory into the respective registers. Restore to A suspend / resume method comprising: transferring the contents of the system memory stored in the fixed disk drive to the system memory; and switching the cache memory from the diagnostic mode to the normal mode. 2. The suspend / resume method according to claim 1, wherein the content of said cache memory is swapped out to said system memory when a write method of a cache memory of said information processing system is write-through. A suspend / resume method wherein steps are omitted. 3. The suspend / resume method according to claim 1, wherein if a video memory is present in the information processing system, the video memory is transferred after the step of transferring the contents of the system memory to a fixed disk drive. The step of transferring to the fixed disk drive is inserted, and the step of transferring the contents of the system memory stored in the fixed disk drive to the system memory after the step of transferring the contents of the video memory stored in the fixed disk drive to the video memory. Suspend / resume method, wherein a transfer step is inserted into the suspend / resume method. 4. The suspend / resume method according to claim 1, wherein a specific area of the cache memory is reserved in advance as an SMM (System Management Memory) space for storing data stored in the cache memory at the time of suspension. A suspend / resume method. 5. The suspend / resume method according to claim 1, wherein the suspend event is generated by an operator. 6. The suspend / resume method according to claim 1, wherein said suspend event is generated by a timer. 7. The suspend / resume method according to claim 1, wherein the resume event is generated by an operator. 8. The suspend / resume method according to claim 1, wherein said resume event is generated by a timer.