Emulex Corporation

Manickam Ananthan

Vi Chau

A system and method for burst broadcasting data from a master device to multiple target devices over a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus. Initially, an initiator device in the system captures control of the bus. The initiator device inspects an internal coherency flag. The initiator device releases the bus if its coherency flag is set (if the initiator device is not in the middle of a previously commenced burst broadcast, in which case it keeps control of the bus). The initiator device then sets the coherency flag in each of the other devices, and concurrently sets it own coherency flag. Once all the coherency flags are set, the initiator device broadcasts a block of data on the bus to each of the other devices simultaneously. Once the burst-broadcast is complete, the coherency flags in the initiator device and each of the other devices are concurrently reset by the initiator device. The invention augments an existing bus technology by adding a new mode of operation.

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Irvine, CA, United States of America

Manickam Ananthan