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:
Sep. 04, 2001
Filed:
Mar. 24, 1999
Gary William Batchelor, Tucson, AZ (US);
Brent Cameron Beardsley, Tucson, AZ (US);
Matthew Joseph Kalos, Tucson, AZ (US);
Forrest Lee Wade, Tucson, AZ (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Disclosed is a bridge system for processing read transactions over a bus in which in a preferred embodiment prefetched data stored in a buffer is not discarded if the address of the requested read does not match the beginning address of the prefetched data. Instead, the bridge system skips to the next address of the prefetched data stored in the buffer and compares that address to the address of the read request to determine if a match exists. If the requested read address does match the next prefetched data address, the prefetched data starting at that next address is read out and forwarded to the requesting agent. Alternatively, if there is not a match, the bridge skips again to the next address and continues checking for a match until either the prefetched data is exhausted or another predetermined limit has been reached. In this manner, many unnecessary data reads of data already prefetched in the buffer may be avoided.