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.

Date of Patent:
Jun. 15, 1999

Filed:

Jul. 26, 1993
Applicant:
Inventor:

Robert Macomber, Portland, ME (US);

Assignee:

National Semiconductor Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
3958004 ; 395835 ; 395733 ;
Abstract

A peripheral device and a host device implement a scalar interrupt-acknowledgement system. The peripheral device detects events and increments an unprocessed counter in response to each detected event. The host device processes the events and increments a processed counter in response to each processed event. After a number of events have been processed, the host device transmits the value held by the processed counter to the peripheral device. In response, the peripheral device subtracts the value of the processed counter from the value of the unprocessed counter. The peripheral device asserts an interrupt when events remain to be processed and deasserts the interrupt when all the events have been processed.


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