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:
Jul. 09, 1996
Filed:
Mar. 30, 1993
James J Allen, Jr, Raleigh, NC (US);
Ronald J Cooper, Raleigh, NC (US);
Douglas H Cox, Raleigh, NC (US);
William L McNeil, Cary, NC (US);
Herbert Rivera-Sanchez, Durham, NC (US);
Terri L Tomlinson, Louisburg, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A system and method for controlling a communications adapter interface such that supplemental data can be interleaved with data being transferred. The interleaving is performed in a manner such that the supplemental data is transparent to the data mover portion of the communications adapter. The supplemental data can be transferred in either read or write cycles that are interleaved at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of data bursts or block data transfers. As a result of the interleaving, the slave interface bus is more fully utilized because arbitration and bus ownership changes do not create unused cycles. The interleaving is accomplished by temporarily halting an existing transfer of data and transferring the requested supplemental data while the data transfer is halted. After the supplemental data is transferred, the transfer of the balance of the data block is then allowed to continue. In other words, the present invention 'steals' a cycle from the data transferror and uses this cycle to transfer supplemental data.