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A Unified Software Architecture for Storage Class Random Access Memory  

Baek, Seung-Jae (단국대학교 컴퓨터학과)
Choi, Jong-Moo (단국대학교 컴퓨터학부)
Publication Information
Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory / v.36, no.3, 2009 , pp. 171-180 More about this Journal
Abstract
Slowly, but surely, we are seeing the emergence of a variety of embedded systems that are employing Storage Class RAM (SCRAM) such as FeRAM, MRAM and PRAM, SCRAM not only has DRAM-characteristic, that is, random byte-unit access capability, but also Disk-characteristic, that is, non-volatility. In this paper, we propose a new software architecture that allows SCRAM to be used both for main memory and for secondary storage simultaneously- The proposed software architecture has two core modules, one is a SCRAM driver and the other is a SCRAM manager. The SCRAM driver takes care of SCRAM directly and exports low level interfaces required for upper layer software modules including traditional file systems, buddy systems and our SCRAM manager. The SCRAM manager treats file objects and memory objects as a single object and deals with them in a unified way so that they can be interchanged without copy overheads. Experiments conducted on real embedded board with FeRAM have shown that the SCRAM driver indeed supports both the traditional F AT file system and buddy system seamlessly. The results also have revealed that the SCRAM manager makes effective use of both characteristics of SCRAM and performs an order of magnitude better than the traditional file system and buddy system.
Keywords
SCRAM; Single Object; Object Migration;
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