In U. S. Patent 7,634,337, Snap-On Incorporated (Pleasant Prairie, WI) inventors Steven Brozovich and Robert Hoevenaar disclose a programmable vehicle or engine diagnostic tool that includes an interface for receiving a signal relating to a performance parameter of the vehicle or engine, a user interface, and a central processing unit, for processing the signal to generate information for presentation to the user. To facilitate fast boot yet enable re-programming of the diagnostic tool, the system utilizes a non-volatile random access memory main memory for the processor based tool, to store the programming for execution by the central processing unit. Disclosed examples of suitable memories include magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), carbon nanotube random access memory (CN-RAM) and programmable metallization memory cell (PMC) memory.
Snap-On’s diagnostic system includes a non-volatile nano random access memory (NNRAM) coupled to the central processing unit. The NNRAM serves as random access main memory for the central processing; and programming is stored in the NNRAM. The programming consists of an operating system and at least one vehicle or engine diagnostic application program for execution by the central processing unit directly from the NNRAM memory serving as the random access main memory for the central processing unit. The execution of the programming directly from the NNRAM by the central processing unit controls the processing operation of the central processing unit with regard to one or more vehicle or engine diagnostic functions of the system.
According to the Brozovich and Hoevenaar, NNRAM or the like allows the tool designer/ manufacturer to provide the desired programmability (something that would be lost if a standard ROM were used which would also be fast for OS and application memory). The fast access time and fast read/write (R/W) times of NNRAM or the like make the boot time minimal, since the tool runs the software programming right out of the non-volatile main memory, eliminating the time required to download into fast RAM from Flash or a hard disk drive. This allows an altering of the system architecture in that the memory no longer needs separation into two areas, nonvolatile (slow) RAM and fast SRAM (static RAM) or PSRAM (pseudostatic RAM). Hence, this new architecture also should be cheaper and smaller and typically have longer battery life because of reduced memory circuitry.
According to the Brozovich and Hoevenaar, NNRAM or the like allows the tool designer/ manufacturer to provide the desired programmability (something that would be lost if a standard ROM were used which would also be fast for OS and application memory). The fast access time and fast read/write (R/W) times of NNRAM or the like make the boot time minimal, since the tool runs the software programming right out of the non-volatile main memory, eliminating the time required to download into fast RAM from Flash or a hard disk drive. This allows an altering of the system architecture in that the memory no longer needs separation into two areas, nonvolatile (slow) RAM and fast SRAM (static RAM) or PSRAM (pseudostatic RAM). Hence, this new architecture also should be cheaper and smaller and typically have longer battery life because of reduced memory circuitry.
