Patent ID: 6477634
Filing Date: 2002-11-05
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A physical page de-allocation process for a virtual addressing mechanism comprising:a conversion table having a plurality of lines of data, the lines containing virtual to physical address mappings, an indicator, and an attribute, the indicator indicating if the line is in a referenced or non-referenced state, the indicator being set to the referenced state by a processor when the line is accessed, a first pointer which points to a first line of the conversion table, said de-allocation process examining the first line pointed to by the first pointer and either sets the indicator to the non-referenced state if the indicator is in the referenced state or de-allocating the line if the indicator is in the non-referenced state, a second pointer which points to a second line of the conversion table, the second line being n lines away from the first line (n being an integer greater than zero), said de-allocation process examining the second line pointed to by the second pointer and based upon the attribute of the second line, setting the indicator to the non-referenced state if the indicator is in the referenced state.