Automotive electronic control unit reliability and safety during power standby mode
View Patent ↗Disclosed are devices and methods for improved operations of a memory device that evaluates data regarding memory usage and restarts based on the evaluation. In one embodiment, a method is disclosed comprising recording statistics of a dynamic random-access memory in a device, while the device is in a power on state; detecting a command to enter a standby state; analyzing the statistics to determine whether a health check should be performed; powering down the device when determining that the health check should be performed; and placing the device in standby mode when determining that the health check should not be performed.
1 . A device comprising:
memory; and
a processor configured to:
receive a request; and
in response to the request:
compare sampled memory usage of the memory to historical memory usage of the memory;
determine that the sampled memory usage of the memory exceeds a first threshold; and
restart based at least in part on the sampled memory usage of the memory exceeding the first threshold.
2 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the restart is based on at least one of an error count or a leak count.
3 . The device of claim 2 , wherein at least one of the error count or leak count is stored in the memory.
4 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to make a record of running processes or programs as part of the restart.
5 . The device of claim 4 , wherein the processor is further configured to, upon restarting, launch the processes or programs.
6 . The device of claim 5 , wherein a standby mode is entered upon detecting that the processes or programs have launched.
7 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the comparing comprises comparing a statistic associated with the memory to a second threshold.
8 . The device of claim 7 , wherein the processor is further configured to adjust the threshold based on at least one characteristic of the memory.
9 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the memory is dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) configured in a memory device, and restarting comprises powering off the memory device so that the DRAM is restarted in an initialized state.
10 . The device of claim 1 , wherein:
the sampled memory usage is for at least one process; and
the historical memory usage is for the process.
11 . A system comprising:
at least one memory device; and
at least one processor configured to:
compare data associated with usage of the memory device, to prior memory usage;
determine that the data associated with usage of the memory device exceeds a first threshold; and
restart based on the data associated with usage of the memory device exceeds the first threshold.
12 . The system of claim 11 , wherein comparing the data is based on a change in an amount of memory used.
13 . The system of claim 11 , wherein:
the processor is further configured to increment an error count in response to detecting an error in memory; and
the data includes the error count.
14 . The system of claim 11 , wherein the data includes commands associated with errors.
15 . The system of claim 11 , wherein the data includes usage of virtual memory.
16 . The system of claim 11 , wherein:
comparing the data comprises comparing an error count to a second threshold.
17 . A method comprising:
comparing sampled memory usage of memory to historical memory usage of the memory;
determining that the sampled memory usage of the memory exceeds a threshold; and
restart based at least in part on the sampled memory usage of the memory exceeding the threshold.
18 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising detecting a command to enter a standby mode, wherein memory statistics are evaluated in response to detecting the command.
19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein the memory statistics are stored in a non-volatile memory.
20 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the second threshold is adjusted based on an uptime of the memory device.
21 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the determining is based on at least one prior memory report regarding operation of the memory.
22 . The system of claim 11 , wherein:
the memory device is configured to store data associated with a plurality of electronic control units (ECUs) coupled to the memory device via a bus; and
the at least one processor is further configured to communicate with the ECUs via the bus to control at least one function of a vehicle.
23 . The method of claim 18 , further comprising:
error-checking data during read operations from a memory using an error correction code (ECC) decoder;
wherein the memory statistics are based at least in part on results from the error-checking.