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. 21, 2001
Filed:
Jan. 13, 1999
Edward G. Callway, Toronto, CA;
Oscar Y. C. Chiu, Markham, CA;
ATI International SRL, Christchurch, BB;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for detecting an interrupt request in a video graphics or other system are accomplished by reading or polling a shared interrupt request flag stored in one of multiple potentially interrupting devices and determining whether a pending interrupt request exists based on a status of the shared interrupt request flag. In the event that a pending interrupt request exists, a notification of the pending interrupt request is provided to an interrupt service routine. In the event that a pending interrupt request does not exist the circuitry that is reading or polling the shared interrupt request flag delays for a polling interval and then repeats reading or polling the shared interrupt request flag and determining whether a pending interrupt request exists. By reading or polling the shared interrupt request flag of a single potentially interrupting device at predetermined intervals of time, the system is able to detect whether any one of the potentially interrupting devices is asserting an interrupt request.