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:
Dec. 05, 2000
Filed:
Jun. 03, 1998
Eric S Collins, Barrington, IL (US);
Brett L Lindsley, Wheaton, IL (US);
Reginald J Hill, Chicago, IL (US);
Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, IL (US);
Abstract
An arbitration and task switching technique in a real-time multiprocessor data processing system (20) having a common bus (32) and a segmented shared memory (30), where fullness of memory segments of the shared memory (30) is used as a measurement for arbitration and task switching priorities. A bus request mechanism in each of the processors dynamically calculates normalized priority values based on relative needs across the system (20). The normalized priority calculation is based on monitoring the fullness of memory segments of the shared memory (30) associated with each processor (24, 26, 28) of the system (20). Using this normalized priority calculation, the bus access order and bus bandwidth are optimally allocated according to tasks executed by the processors (24, 26, 28). Also, the normalized priority calculation and a preprogrammed threshold is used to control task switching in the multi-processor system (20).