The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 11, 1993
Filed:
Apr. 04, 1990
Timothy V Bolan, Endwell, NY (US);
Josephine A Boston, Endicott, NY (US);
George A Fax, Rochester, MN (US);
Donald J Hanrahan, Endwell, NY (US);
Bernhard Laubli, Schonaich, DE;
David A Ring, Endicott, NY (US);
Alfred T Rundle, Endwell, NY (US);
David J Shippy, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
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.