William Wayne Williams
Architects at Congress St, Tucson, AZ

7051174, May 23, 2006

Sep 24, 2002

10/255026

Kevin John Ash - Tucson AZ, US
Vernon J. Legvold - Tucson AZ, US
Steven Robert Lowe - Tucson AZ, US
David Frank Mannenbach - Tucson AZ, US
Carol Santich Mellgren - Tucson AZ, US
Kenneth Wayne Todd - Tucson AZ, US
William Dennis Williams - Tucson AZ, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F 12/02

711162, 711113, 711114, 711161, 711163, 711165, 711166, 707204, 707205, 714 5, 714 6

Provided are a method, system, and program for maintaining data in a first cache and second cache, wherein a backup cache maintains a backup copy of data in the first cache, and wherein the first cache is used to cache a first set of data in a storage system and the second cache is used to cache a second set of data in the storage system. An unavailable state of the first cache is detected. In response to detecting the unavailable state, requests to the first set of data are blocked and at least one space in the second cache is allocated for data in the backup cache. Requests to the first set of data are allowed to proceed after the at least one space is allocated in the second cache and before the data in the backup cache is copied to the at least one allocated space in the second cache. The data from the backup cache is copied to the allocated at least one space in the second cache after the requests to the first set of data are allowed to proceed.

5315568, May 24, 1994

Nov 12, 1992

7/974639

James J. Dente - Tucson AZ
Glen A. Jaquette - Tucson AZ
William C. Williams - Tucson AZ

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G11B 1722

369 32

Apparatus and method are provided to increase the capacity of spiral track data storage disks while improving the reliability of access to sectors on the disk. In one embodiment, employed when logical tracks on an optical disk are grouped into concentric bands, previously unusable sectors immediately following a band boundary can be reliably accessed. In accordance with this embodiment, when the target sector is, for example, the first sector of band N and a laser beam from a read head lands on a sector in the previous band N-1, the clock governing the data transfer rate is set to the frequency of the band N-1 and a sector in that band is detected and identified. Based upon the period of sectors in the band N-1, a delay interval is computed which ends when the last sector in the band N-1 rotates past the laser beam. Sector mark detection is disabled during the delay interval and the clock frequency changed to that of band N. Sector mark detection is re-enabled at the end of the delay, the band boundary passes, and the target sector can be detected and accessed.

6948009, Sep 20, 2005

Jun 4, 2002

10/163219

Thomas Charles Jarvis - Tucson AZ, US
Steven Robert Lowe - Tucson AZ, US
Sam Clark Werner - Tucson AZ, US
William Dennis Williams - Tucson AZ, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F003/00, G06F013/00

710 17, 710 5, 710 31, 710 32, 710 39, 712405

Provided are a method, system, and program for increasing processor utilization. A list of work is divided for processing among a plurality of processes, wherein a process is allocated a part of the list of work to process, and the processes execute in parallel. If a process completes the list of work allocated to the process then the process is made available on an available process queue. Before a process performs any work, the process reads the available process queue and determines if any process is available to share the work. If so, the work is split up between the examining process and the available process. In one implementation, the work involves scanning a cache and if necessary destage data.

5235690, Aug 10, 1993

Aug 31, 1990

7/575716

Brent C. Beardsley - Tucson AZ
Michael T. Benhase - Tucson AZ
Gail A. Spear - Tucson AZ
William D. Williams - Tucson AZ

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F 1310

395425

The peripheral cache DASD subsystem is connected to predetermined host processors. A channel connection between the host processor and the peripheral subsystem has a much higher burst rate then the burst data transfer rate of a DASD while having an extended signal propagation time preventing rapid exchanges of interactive control signals. The branch write occurs in that data is written both to the DASD and to the cache simultaneously. The write domain is established in the subsystem by the host processor as a number of records to be written on the DASD only after the available cache space is compared with a needed cache space for the entire write domain. Whenever the available cache space is less than the write domain needs, then the peripheral cache DASD subsystem subsets the data transfer into a plurality of subset data transfers each having data storable in the available cache data storage space. Calculations for determining the maximum cache space are described and sets of machine operations are disclosed for effecting the above operations.

5606541, Feb 25, 1997

Nov 13, 1992

7/976436

Blair I. Finkelstein - Tucson AZ
William C. Williams - Tucson AZ

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G11B 700

369112

This invention provides an optical disk device with a switchable filter for reducing the light intensity from a write level to a read level or an erase level. The filter can further be used to modulate the light intensity between a write level and a gap level for the process of recording data. For semiconductor laser sources, this filter reduces laser feedback noise by allowing the laser to operate at a higher, more stable power level during data sensing, and by reducing the amount of light reflected from the storage disk back to the laser cavity. Because the filter transmission can be high during the write process, the power requirements of the semiconductor laser are not increased in the device of this invention. In one embodiment, the switchable filter of this invention includes a variable retarder with means to select light on the basis of its phase or polarization, for example, with polarizers. This retarder can comprise a liquid crystal cell wherein either the optical orientation or retardance is electro-optically tunable.

7500064, Mar 3, 2009

Dec 3, 2007

11/949458

Said A. Ahmad - Tucson AZ, US
Michael T. Benhase - Tucson AZ, US
William D. Williams - Tucson AZ, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F 12/00, G06F 13/00, G06F 13/28, G06F 15/177, G06F 17/30

711141, 711144, 711145, 707201, 707203, 713 2, 709222

A data coherence system includes a generation number written to a data track of a logical sub-system. The generation number is compared to a corresponding generation number in a processing device when it is initialized. If the two generations numbers are the same, the generation numbers are incremented and saved. If not, cache associated with the logical sub-system residing within the processing device is erased and the generation numbers are reset.

5309420, May 3, 1994

Nov 6, 1992

7/972579

Glen A. Jaquette - Tucson AZ
William C. Williams - Tucson AZ

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G11B 2736

369 58

To sense the presence of written data on an optical disk, the readback signal from the disk is detected, and the intervals between detected signal events are measured. That signal event occurring at an expected time delta after the preceding signal event indicates a valid data signal time delta. Those signal events occurring at an unexpected time delta after the preceding signal event indicates the readback signal to be noise. If the count of valid signal time deltas minus the unexpected time deltas attributed to noise accumulates rapidly along a given track within a given sector of the optical disk that sector is determined to be written. Provision is made for counting signal events in accordance with the specific run-length limited in use.

7386676, Jun 10, 2008

Jan 21, 2005

11/040463

Said A. Ahmad - Tucson AZ, US
Michael T. Benhase - Tucson AZ, US
William D. Williams - Tucson AZ, US

International Buiness Machines Coporation - Armonk NY

G06F 12/00, G06F 13/00, G06F 13/28, G06F 15/177, G06F 17/30

711141, 711144, 711145, 707201, 707203, 713 2, 709222

A data coherence system includes a generation number written to a data track of a logical sub-system. The generation number is compared to a corresponding generation number in a processing device when it is initialized. If the two generations numbers are the same, the generation numbers are incremented and saved. If not, cache associated with the logical sub-system residing within the processing device is erased and the generation numbers are reset.