US 12,292,978 B1
System and method for SRAM less electronic device bootup using cache
Ramacharan Sundararaman, San Jose, CA (US); and Avinash Sodani, San Jose, CA (US)
Assigned to Marvell Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore (SG)
Filed by Marvell Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore (SG)
Filed on Nov. 2, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/516,915.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/112,500, filed on Nov. 11, 2020.
Int. Cl. G06F 21/57 (2013.01); G06F 3/06 (2006.01); G06F 21/54 (2013.01)
CPC G06F 21/575 (2013.01) [G06F 3/062 (2013.01); G06F 3/0632 (2013.01); G06F 3/0679 (2013.01); G06F 21/54 (2013.01)] 26 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system to support an electronic device, comprising:
a non-modifiable storage configured to maintain one or more of data, instructions, and initialization sequences to be accessed and/or executed to bootup the electronic device;
a cache unit, wherein a portion of the cache unit is associated with a region of a memory that has not been initialized and is not ready to be accessed via a read or write operation; and
a processor configured to
determine whether the portion of the cache unit includes the one or more of data, instructions, and initialization sequences;
write a specific value in the portion of the cache unit in response to determining that the portion of the cache unit does not include the one or more of data, instructions, and initialization sequences;
subsequent to writing the specific value, write the one or more of data, instructions, and initialization sequences read from the non-modifiable storage to the portion of the cache unit;
drop a write operation to the associated region of the memory, wherein an address associated with the dropped write operation is recorded, and wherein the address associated with the dropped write operation is used in a subsequent read operation access to the address associated with the dropped write operation; and
access and utilize the one or more of data, instructions, and initialization sequences stored in the portion of the cache unit to bootup the electronic device.