Buffered asynchronous communications elements with receive/transmit

Abstract

An asynchronous communications element which incorporates user-selectable FIFOs both as transmitter and receiver buffers to reduce CPU interrupt overhead. The asynchronous communications element includes a receiver shift register which receives serial data transfers from a communication station, a receiver FIFO which receives parallel data transfers from the receiver shift register for transfer to the CPU, a transmitter FIFO which receives parallel data transfers from the CPU, and a transmitter shift register which receives parallel data transfers from the transmitter FIFO for serial transfer to the communications station. A transmitter time delay eliminates multiple interrupts for a transmitter FIFO 'empty' condition that has already been indicated to the CPU. Programmable interrupt levels on the receiver FIFO, together with a receiver FIFO that continues to fill beyond the programmed interrupt level, allow adjustments for variable CPU latency times. A receiver time delay interrupt indicates to the CPU that there are data characters in the receiver FIFO which have not reached the programmable trigger level, but which exceed specified time limit conditions. The receiver and transmitter FIFOs may be both individually and simultaneously disabled; a single-bit register flag indicates their status.