Method and apparatus for providing memory management within a system management mode

Claim 1

A method for providing memory management within a system management mode, the method comprising: creating a memory reserved table comprising a singly linked list of a predetermined number of unused descriptors marked with a predetermined value; replacing at least one unused descriptor with a used descriptor, wherein the used descriptor identifies a region of system management random access memory allocated by the memory management program; periodically determining whether all of the descriptors in the memory reserved table are used to identify allocated memory; and in response to determining that all of the descriptors have been utilized, creating a new memory reserved table comprising a singly linked list of the predetermined number of unused descriptors.

Claim 2

A method for providing memory management within a system management mode, the method comprising: creating a memory reserved table comprising a singly linked list of a predetermined number of unused descriptors marked with a predetermined value; replacing at least one unused descriptor with a used descriptor, wherein the used descriptor identifies a region of system management random access memory allocated by the memory management program; periodically determining whether all of the descriptors in the memory reserved table are used to identify allocated memory; and in response to determining that all of the descriptors have been utilized, creating a new memory reserved table comprising a singly linked list of the predetermined number of unused descriptors.

Claim 9

A method for providing memory management within a system management mode, the method comprising: executing within the system management mode a memory management program, the memory management program operative to initially allocate a memory reserved table comprising a predetermined number of unused descriptors in a singly linked list, the memory reserved table further including a field identifying a number of used descriptors within the singly linked list, maintain the singly linked list, wherein each used descriptor identifies a region of system management random access memory allocated by the memory management program, comprises an indication of a base memory address of the allocated region, comprises an indication of an ending memory address of the allocated region, and comprises a pointer to a next descriptor, receive a request for a region of system management random access memory, wherein the request comprises a request for a specific size of memory or a request for a specified size of memory located at a specific memory address, determine based on the contents of the singly linked list whether the requested memory region is available, in response to determining that the requested memory region is available, allocate an unused descriptor for the requested memory region and return an indication that the memory region has been allocated, receive a request to deallocate a region of system management random access memory, identify one or more used descriptors for the memory region to be deallocated, mark each of the one or more used descriptors identified to be deallocated as an unused descriptor, return an indication that the memory region has been deallocated, periodically determine whether all of the descriptors in the memory reserved table have been utilized to identify allocated memory, and in response to determining that all of the descriptors have been utilized, create a new memory reserved table comprising one or more descriptors.

Claim 10

A method for providing memory management within a system management mode, the method comprising: executing within the system management mode a memory management program, the memory management program operative to initially allocate a memory reserved table comprising a predetermined number of unused descriptors in a singly linked list, the memory reserved table further including a field identifying a number of used descriptors within the singly linked list, maintain the singly linked list, wherein each used descriptor identifies a region of system management random access memory allocated by the memory management program, comprises an indication of a base memory address of the allocated region, comprises an indication of an ending memory address of the allocated region, and comprises a pointer to a next descriptor, receive a request for a region of system management random access memory, wherein the request comprises a request for a specific size of memory or a request for a specified size of memory located at a specific memory address, determine based on the contents of the singly linked list whether the requested memory region is available, in response to determining that the requested memory region is available, allocate an unused descriptor for the requested memory region and return an indication that the memory region has been allocated, receive a request to deallocate a region of system management random access memory, identify one or more used descriptors for the memory region to be deallocated, mark each of the one or more used descriptors identified to be deallocated as an unused descriptor, return an indication that the memory region has been deallocated, periodically determine whether all of the descriptors in the memory reserved table have been utilized to identify allocated memory, and in response to determining that all of the descriptors have been utilized, create a new memory reserved table comprising one or more descriptors.