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:
Aug. 19, 1997
Filed:
Jun. 29, 1994
Noble G Larson, Eugene, OR (US);
Other;
Abstract
A ring-structured network allowing bidirectional, point-to-point, communications between a plurality of nodes (200A-E), some of them equipped with a computing element (210) and a local memory element (221), and others, possibly, serving as input/output devices. In addition to clocks and miscellaneous signals, the network is divided cross-sectionally into two pipelined busses, or pipes: one (995A-B) to signal node selection, and another (996A-B) to convey data. Values, termed tags, sent over the selection pipe are interpreted, as they arrive, at the nodes, by means of lookup tables. Several varieties of selection can be represented in these tables, some, e.g., signalling read or write transfers between the data pipe and local memory element (221). Other varieties may signal the loading of local memory address pointers (223, 224, or 225) from the data pipe. Tags are generated by a specialized node (100), which thus serves as a traffic controller. A key feature of this network is that individual tags may signal selection of a plurality of nodes, some perhaps for reading, and others possibly for writing. In this way, concurrent transfers between multiple pairs of nodes are induced on the network, in a systolic manner. Such transfers can be organized to effect a variety of statically-routed communications, including those between adjacent partitions in embedded two-dimensional rectilinear and hexagonal grids. Extensions to support dynamically-routed communications are also disclosed.