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:
Jun. 05, 2001
Filed:
May. 20, 1998
Glen H. Lowe, Union City, CA (US);
Claude Hayek, Mountain View, CA (US);
3COM Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and system for programmably controlling hardware generation of interrupts by a peripheral component. In one embodiment, the present invention uses a peripheral component driver to programmably define a duration for a time cycle of a hardware timer disposed on a peripheral component. The hardware timer is configured to cause the generation of an interrupt signal upon the expiration of the time cycle. In this embodiment, the hardware timer of the peripheral component implements the duration for the time cycle and causes the generation of an interrupt signal upon the expiration of the time cycle. In so doing, the present embodiment attains the reliability and consistency of hardware timer generated interrupts schemes, but, by controlling the hardware timer with software, the present embodiment prevents over utilization of the CPU by the hardware timer.