Importance

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Abstract

A system and method recaptures peripheral device dedicated memory for use by other system components such as the CPU. The system comprises a CPU, a preferred primary PCI bridge and at least one peripheral system. The peripheral system comprises a peripheral device, a peripheral memory typically dedicated to the peripheral device, and a peripheral controller for managing peripheral device commands and peripheral memory access requests. The system may further comprise a system memory unit having a system memory and a system memory controller. The preferred primary PCI bridge couples the CPU to the peripheral system(s), determines dedicated and shared memory portions for the peripheral memory, creates a composite memory map, and delivers memory aperture information to each of the peripherals. During runtime, the preferred primary PCI bridge manages dedicated and shared peripheral memory access. Using the memory aperture information, each peripheral controller manages access to its respective peripheral memory.

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First Claim