Patent ID: 7904676

Claim:
A method of operating a computer system, the method comprising: operating a first cell of the computer system in accordance with a first memory access configuration, wherein in the first memory access configuration, a first processing core of the first cell accesses a memory controller in the first cell without using at least one processor agent and a fabric; migrating a first attribute of the first processing core of the first cell to a second cell of the computer system, wherein migrating the first attribute of the first processing core causes the first processing core to become inactive; after the first processing core becomes inactive, configuring a first portion of the first cell so that the first cell is capable of operating in accordance with a second memory access configuration; migrating at least one of the first attribute and a second attribute from the second cell back to the first processing core of the first cell, wherein migrating at least one of the first attribute and the second attribute from the second cell back to the first processing core causes the first processing core to become active; and after the first processing core becomes active, operating the first cell in the second memory access configuration, wherein in the second memory access configuration, the first processing core accesses the memory controller in the first cell using the at least one processor agent and the fabric.