I/o peripheral device for use in a store-and-forward segment of a peripheral bus

Abstract

An I/O peripheral device is equipped with a first collection of circuitry to enable the I/O peripheral device to provide a store-and-forward manner of operation to a segment of a peripheral bus. The first collection of circuitry includes first buffering circuitry to buffer request packets destined for a first bus agent, received from a bus controller in an integrated multi-packet form, in bulk, and at a first communication speed. Furthermore, the first collection includes control circuitry to forward the request packets separately, in a packet-by-packet basis, to the first bus agent, in a second communication speed. In one embodiment, the second communication speed is slower than the first communication speed. The I/O peripheral device further includes second buffer circuitry to buffer response packets to a request from the first bus agent provided separately, and each at the slower second communication speed. The first control circuitry also facilitates forwarding of the buffered response packets to the bus controller in bulk at the faster first communication speed. In one embodiment, the I/O peripheral device further includes second control circuitry to repeat communications destined for a second bus agent, received from the bus controller at the first communication speed, for the second bus agent, at also the first communication speed. In one embodiment, the I/O peripheral device is a hub.