First-in, first-out buffer

Abstract

An apparatus has first-in, first-out (FIFO) buffer circuitry to transfer data from a source domain to a sink domain across a clock domain boundary. The FIFO buffer circuitry has data transfer circuitry to store the data to be transferred across the clock domain boundary; and source and sink domain data transfer control circuitry to maintain respective state vectors indicative of a state of the FIFO buffer circuitry in the respective domain. At least one of the source domain transfer control circuitry and the sink domain transfer control circuitry is operable to perform a multi-item transfer to transfer two or more data items in a single clock cycle of a respective domain by placing the data items into, or reading the data items from, respective data storage elements; and advancing a state vector of the respective domain by two or more state vector encodings in the single clock cycle.