US Patent 9335943 Method and apparatus for fine grain memory protection

An apparatus and method for fine grain memory protection. For example, one embodiment of a method comprises: performing a first lookup operation using a virtual address to identify a physical address of a memory page, the memory page comprising a plurality of sub-pages; determining whether sub-page permissions are enabled for the memory page; if sub-page permissions are enabled, then performing a second lookup operation to determine permissions associated with one or more of the sub-pages of the memory page; and implementing the permissions associated with the one or more sub-pages.