International Business Machines Corporation

George A Fax

James Wilson Bishop

Robert G Iseminger

David James Shippy

Alfred T Rundle

Timothy V Bolan

Donald J Hanrahan

Josephine A Boston

Bernhard Laubli

David A Ring

A programmable timing circuit on an integrated circuit chip for testing the cycle time of functional circuits on the chip. The timing circuit includes a selectable input having at least two sources, one of which is a toggle circuit; a minimally delayed control path including a control latch; a programmable delay path in parallel with the control path and including a sample latch; and a comparator for comparing the state of the control latch and sample latches to provide a signal indicative of the delay path being longer than the control path. A plurality of configuration latches and multiplexers are provided for selecting the input source and routing an input signal through specific delay blocks to control the amount of delay in the delay path.

Programmable timing circuit for testing the cycle time of functional circuits on an integrated circuit chip

A plurality of processors are connected to the interprocessor communications facility in the multiprocessing system of the invention. The interprocessor communications facility has arbitration circuitry, mailbox circuitry, and processor interrupt circuitry. The interprocessor communications facility of the invention is centralized and does not require the use of main storage. This enables processors to communicate with each other in a fast and efficient manner. The arbitration circuitry prevents simultaneous access of the interprocessor communications facility by more than one processor, and decodes the commands sent from the processors and routes them to the processor interrupt circuitry or to the mailbox circuitry, depending on the command. The mailbox circuitry of the invention receives messages from sending processors and provides them to the intended receiving processors in a safe and secure manner. The processor interrupt circuitry facilitates the interprocessor communications process by handling interprocessor interrupts.

Multiprocessing system with interprocessor communications facility

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Round Rock, TX, United States of America

George A Fax