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. 26, 1998
Filed:
Jun. 03, 1997
P K Nizar, El Dorado Hills, CA (US);
David Carson, Hillsboro, OR (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A multi-processor system includes an interrupt bus used for arbitrating among eligible processors to determine which processor is to service of an interrupt request. The interrupt bus comprises wired-OR connection data lines that are used for arbitration. A local interrupt controller that handles the acceptance of interrupt request messages on the interrupt bus is associated with each processor. To minimize interruption of high priority tasks, interrupts can be accepted by the processor in the system that is currently running the lowest priority task. An arbitration protocol governs the interrupt bus and determines the lowest priority processor. The arbitration protocol includes choosing one among the lowest priority processors by means of a random priority scheme that uses an arbitration ID that is updated with each message.