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. 31, 1999
Filed:
Aug. 20, 1996
Sompong Paul Olarig, Cypress, TX (US);
Dale J Mayer, Houston, TX (US);
William F Whiteman, Cypress, TX (US);
Compaq Computer Corporation, Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
A distributed interrupt controller system for use in a multiprocessor environment, having at least two local programmable interrupt controllers (LOPICs) coupled to at least one central programmable interrupt controller (COPIC) via a dedicated bus. One of the at least one COPICs functions as a master arbiter, while the LOPICs, each of which may be integrated with its corresponding processing unit, and other non-master COPICs are treated as bus agents. Bus grant is achieved by a 'round robin' arbitration protocol. For distributed delivery of interrupts, the master arbiter compares a current-task-priority-register value associated with each bus agent to determine the agent that is least busy for delivery of the interrupt thereto.