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. 27, 1999
Filed:
Sep. 09, 1996
Lily Pao Looi, Portland, OR (US);
Nitin Borkar, Beaverton, OR (US);
Frank Verhoorn, Beaverton, OR (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A computer system includes a priority arbitration scheme that prevents 'hogging' of a bus by a priority agent. The computer system comprises at least one agent, at least one priority agent, a system resource, and a bus coupling the agent, priority agent, and system resource to one another. An arbiter is coupled to the bus, agent, and priority agent to receive request signals from the agent and the priority agent and to grant control of the bus to one of the agent and priority agent for access to the system resource. The priority agent is granted control of the bus whenever the priority agent asserts a request signal, as soon as the bus becomes next available. The priority agent relinquishes control of the bus to the agent, for a predetermined portion of the bus bandwidth, when a request signal is asserted by the agent.