International Business Machines Corporation

Laura Hepner Evans

Matthew J Kalos

Thomas Charles Jarvis

David Brent Schreiber

Earle Ellsworth

Sangram Singh Ghoman

Ralph O'Neill

Lisa Phan

Enrique Q Garcia

Brian Dewayne Watson

A data processing system provides a method and apparatus for managing a shared resource between multiple processors. The data processing system includes a first processor for producing, or supplying, available sections of the shared resource, and a second processor for consuming, or allocating, the available sections within the system. The first and second processor share a memory containing a circular queue, a resource queue, for referencing available shared resource sections. The resource queue is initialized by storing a pointer to an available shared resource section in each entry of the resource queue. The second processor consumes an available section of shared resource by removing a resource pointer from a resource queue entry and sending a message signal to a mailbox message subsystem of the first processor. The first processor produces an additional section of available shared resource by servicing the resource message signal and adding a pointer to the additional shared resource section in an empty resource queue entry.

Managing a shared resource in a multi-processor system

A mailbox message system is coupled between a processor having a mailbox and one or more peripheral devices or circuits communicating information to the processor. The mailbox message system in the present invention reports events which occur in the peripheral devices or circuits to the mailbox within the processor to be serviced by the processor. The mailbox message system receives inputs from the processor indicating which events are allowed to be currently serviced by the processor and stores these inputs in a first memory. The mailbox message system further receives unique signals representing distinct events from the peripheral devices and stores these signals in a second memory. The generated events which are pending service in the second memory are then compared with the allowed events in the first memory. When a match exists, a message is encoded and transmitted to the mailbox of the processor indicating that the processor has an event to be serviced. The processor then must service all the pending events in the second memory.

Programmable hardware mailbox message technique and system

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Tucson, AZ, United States of America

Laura Hepner Evans