System and method for executing binary images

Abstract

A system that determines where a particular XIP component is stored on a medium and loads the component into RAM for execution, providing the ability to demand page specific components at will from storage media, frees up working RAM on memory constrained devices. A Binary File System uses a generic block driver component that loads the XIP code from a block based storage medium. Features of the file system include the ability to load pre-“fixed up” components from a block based device.. The invention thus allows an operating system to load code that was previously Executed In Place (XIP) from a block-oriented device.

1 . A computer system, comprising: 
 a non-linearly addressable memory device comprising fixed-up, execute in place computer-executable instructions;    a physical memory device; and    a file system for copying the computer-executable instructions into the physical memory wherein the file system is capable of overwriting the computer-executable instructions in the physical memory without needing to swap them out between the physical memory and the non-linearly addressable memory and is capable of retrieving any computer-executable instructions from the non-linearly addressable memory as needed, wherein the computer-executable instructions are binary images, wherein the binary images comprise code based instructions.    
   
   
       2 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein at least one of the binary images is logically partitioned into a plurality of separate independent regions, wherein the regions can be logically viewed as a plurality of independent binary images that may interact together.  
   
   
       3 . The computer system according to  claim 2 , wherein the actual logical and physical address location of each region is at various arbitrary areas in the non-linearly addressable memory.  
   
   
       4 . The computer system according to  claim 2 , wherein the regions vary in size depending on the contents intended for a particular region.  
   
   
       5 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein the computer-executable instructions are fixed-up by an image fix-up tool, which takes relative addressed instructions created by a compiler or a similar tool and creates absolute addressed instructions.  
   
   
       6 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein the physical memory includes DRAM, NOR flash memory, and RAM.  
   
   
       7 . The computer system according to  claim 6 , wherein the DRAM and NOR flash provide non-volatile storage and RAM provides volatile storage.  
   
   
       8 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein a RAM disk is used in place of the non-linearly addressable memory.  
   
   
       9 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein the non-linearly addressable memory includes NAND flash memory and a disk storage system, including a standard ATA and IDE hard disk drive.  
   
   
       10 . A method for managing memory, comprising: 
 storing on a non-linearly addressable memory device, a software component comprising a set of computer-executable instructions, wherein the computer-executable instructions are fixed to be executed from a predefined memory location; and    loading the set of computer-executable instructions into a linearly addressable memory device using a file system when at least one of the computer-executable instructions is fetched by a processor.    
   
   
       11 . The method according to  claim 10 , wherein storing includes creating the instructions, including creating absolute addressed instructions based on relative addressed instructions.  
   
   
       12 . The method according to  claim 11 , wherein creating the absolute addressed instructions from relative addressed instructions is performed by an image fix-up tool.  
   
   
       13 . The method according to  claim 12 , wherein the image fix-up tool creates address links among the instructions.