JPH0130239B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Technical Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic bubble storage device including a plurality of magnetic bubble storage elements.

Prior Art and Problems As shown in FIG. 1, a magnetic bubble storage element having major and minor loops includes a large number of minor loops 11, 12, . . . 1n and a major loop. In this example, the major loop is the bubble generator 23
write line 21 and bubble detector 2 connected to
It consists of a readout line 22 connected to 4. These are formed on a bubble chip, and a permanent magnet for applying a bias magnetic field, a coil for generating a driving magnetic field, etc. are arranged on the chip to form a magnetic bubble memory element (device).

Since the magnetic bubble storage element is used as an external storage device for the central processing unit CPU, it is connected to the CPU through the controller, and conventionally, one magnetic bubble storage element is connected to the CPU through the controller.
It was common to be connected to However, the operating speed of magnetic bubble memory elements is slower than that of CPUs.
In order to improve this point, it has been considered to connect a plurality (N) of magnetic bubble memory elements in parallel.
Figure 2 shows the configuration of such a memory system.
1 to 3N are N magnetic bubble storage elements, and 41 is a host system CPU. 42 is a writing means;
43 is a reading means, which is a part of the bubble controller.

The write operation when one magnetic bubble storage element is used is as follows. The read data is
8 bits or 16 bits (1 byte or 2 bytes) are transferred from the CPU in parallel, and when they are serialized, the bubble generator 23 in FIG. The generation operation sends a string of 8 or 16 bit bubbles to the write line 21 and the next 8 bits sent from the CPU.
The same process is performed for bits or 16 bits, and when the bubbles are aligned on the write line 21, they are transferred to each minor loop all at once, and thus written to the magnetic bubble memory element. The ◯ mark position (there are many, but only one is shown) on the chain line 25 is a position where simultaneous writing is performed and is called a page. Therefore, the number of bits in a page, which can be called the number of characters on one page, is equal to the number of minor loops, which is, for example, 64 bytes. Number of bits in each minor loop (number of propagation patterns)
corresponds to the number of pages in a book. If the data from the CPU is in 8-bit or 16-bit units, the data for 64 or 32 times is converted into a serial signal each time it is transmitted, and when the 64-byte bubbles are aligned on the write line 21, they are all transmitted at once. The process moves to minor loops 11 to 1n, and writing of one page is completed.
If there is still data, it is written to the next page, and the page to be written is specified by the CPU.

Multiple (N) magnetic bubble memory elements (devices)
In a memory system used in parallel, the minor loop in Figure 1 is treated as if it were multiplied by N times, and a 64-byte/page device becomes a 64N-byte/page device. Therefore, the data transmitted from the CPU 64N or 32N times can be stored in the minor loop at once, and since the data from the CPU is distributed bit by bit to each device, it is possible to equivalently speed up the device. . for example
If the data from the CPU is in 8-bit units and the number of devices N is 8, each time data is sent from the CPU, it is assigned to 8 devices, 1 bit at a time, so the device operating speed is equivalently increased by 8 times. Become.

However, in the conventional method that handles multiple devices in parallel, the number of characters in a page becomes large, and although it is fine when the data block has a large capacity, it is difficult to handle small capacity data. That is, since access is in page units, when attempting to write a small amount of data, a large number of empty spaces occur. Furthermore, it often happens that the data that is desired to be read is only a certain part of a certain page, and in this case, operations such as reading out the entire page and extracting only the necessary part are required, which is wasteful.

Since the magnetic bubble memory element has a large number of minor loops, cases tend to occur in which one or two of the minor loops are defective and cannot be used. If there is a defective loop, it is switched to a spare loop and used.
In such devices, information indicating which of the minor loops is defective is stored in another minor loop (boot loop), and when the memory system operates, the defect loop information is read from the boot loop and Therefore, write and read data are adjusted. If a new defective loop occurs during operation, the defective loop information of the boot loop of the device is updated. In such processing, there is no need to read and write data for the entire page across multiple devices, and it is only necessary to read and write data for the device in question.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to make each magnetic bubble memory storage element accessible for a desired period of time.

Structure of the Invention The present invention includes a magnetic bubble information writing means, a magnetic bubble information reading means, and a plurality of magnetic bubble storage elements having a major/minor loop.
In a magnetic bubble storage device in which these magnetic bubble storage elements are synchronously and simultaneously accessed by the writing means or the reading means, control is provided to write or read only to any one of the magnetic bubble storage elements during an arbitrary period. The present invention is characterized by the provision of means, which will be explained next with reference to embodiments.

Embodiment of the Invention FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the invention, in which the same parts as in FIG. 2 are given the same reference numerals. As is clear from a comparison with FIG. 2, in the present invention, the writing means 42,
Reading means 43 and magnetic bubble storage elements 31 to 3N
A control means 45 is provided between the memory elements 31 to 3.
N can also be accessed individually. Control means 45
A specific example of the writing system is shown in FIG. 51-5
N, 61 to 6N are N OR gates, and 70 is a gate switching control circuit (decoder). 1~
GeN is a signal that controls the bubble generator of each device according to write data, and GeN is a signal that similarly controls the bubble generator of each device according to swap data. S/P is a signal that connects devices 31 to 3N in parallel (conventional method) Alternatively, signals SEL1 to SELM are signals for controlling switching in series (accessing only one of the devices), and are signals for selecting one of the devices. For N and M
2 There is a relationship of ^M = N. 1~OGeN,1
~ is the output of the OR gate. FIG. 5 is a time chart of these signals.

To explain the operation of the circuit shown in FIG. 4 with reference to FIG. 5, the switching signal S/P indicates parallel L
(Low) level, the outputs of the control circuit 70 are all L level, and outputs 1 to ,
1~ is input 1~, 1~

be equivalent to. The write operation in this case is as described above, and the data sent from the CPU 41 in 8-bit or 16-bit units is allocated to each device bit by bit, and converted into a serial signal for each device.
Pages are written to each device's minor loop. Next, H instructs the switching signal S/P to be serial.
(high) level, only the selection output S1 for the gate of one device selected by the signals SEL1 to SELM, for example, OR gates 51 and 61 becomes H, and the remaining outputs S2 to SN become L, and the gates 51 and 6
1 is opened and gates 52 to 5N and 62 to 6N are closed. In this way, writing can be performed only to the device 31 selected by the selection signals SEL1 to SELM.

Of course, in this case, the write data from the CPU 41 is applied only to the control signal 1. Therefore, the device is similar to a single memory system, and the CPU 41
The write data in units of 8 bits or 16 bits is all converted into serial data, which becomes the control signal 1. Distribute write data from the CPU to 1~, or give it to one of 1~,
These controls are performed by the writing means 42.

For reading, only one of the selected devices is read, and the read data of the selected device is inputted to the reading means 43 through the control means 45 and transferred to the host system in units of 8 bits or 16 bits.

Effects of the Invention As is clear from the above explanation, according to the present invention, a memory system in which N magnetic bubble memory elements are arranged in parallel can be used as a bubble memory system with N times the number of characters in a page, and the magnetic bubble memory Any one of the elements can be operated as a memory system that can be accessed independently for any period of time, which is extremely effective.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an overview of a major-minor loop magnetic bubble storage element, Fig. 2 is a block diagram showing a conventional example of a memory system having a plurality of magnetic bubble storage elements, and Fig. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an outline of a major-minor loop magnetic bubble storage element. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an embodiment, FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram showing a specific example of a part of FIG. 3, and FIG. 5 is a time chart for explaining the operation. In the drawing, 42 is a writing means, 43 is a reading means,
11 to 1n are minor loops, 21 and 22 are major loops, 31 to 3N are magnetic bubble storage elements,
45 is a control means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Comprising a magnetic bubble information writing means, a magnetic bubble information reading means, and a plurality of magnetic bubble storage elements having major/minor loops, these magnetic bubble storage elements can be read by the writing means or the reading means. 1. A magnetic bubble storage device accessed synchronously and simultaneously, characterized in that a control means is provided for writing or reading only to any one of the magnetic bubble storage elements during a given period.