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. 03, 1999
Filed:
Feb. 16, 1996
David G Roberts, Fremont, CA (US);
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
Method and system aspects control access through a synchronization primitive to a peripheral device in a processing system. A processing system in accordance with the present invention includes at least one central processing unit (CPU), and at least one peripheral device coupled to the at least one CPU, where the at least one peripheral device includes a synchronization primitive for controlling acquisition by at least one thread of execution from the at least one CPU. In a system aspect for controlling access, the system includes a circuit for sending a first signal from a component of the processing system to a synchronization primitive within the peripheral device to determine a state of the synchronization primitive, and acquiring control of the peripheral device when the synchronization primitive is in a released state. In a method for gaining control of a peripheral device in a processing system, the method includes sending a first signal from a component of the processing system to a semaphore register within the peripheral device to determine a bit pattern in the semaphore register, and acquiring control of the peripheral device when the semaphore register stores a first bit pattern.