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:
Feb. 11, 2003
Filed:
May. 28, 1999
Jung-Jen Liu, San Jose, CA (US);
Scott Smyers, San Jose, CA (US);
Bruce A. Fairman, Woodside, CA (US);
Steve Pham, Milpitas, CA (US);
Jose L. Diaz, San Jose, CA (US);
Richard A. Bardini, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Other;
Abstract
A system and method for context switching in an electronic network comprises a memory configured to store instruction modules, each instruction module corresponding to a context, a processor that executes the instruction modules, and a control state machine. The control state machine selects one of the instruction modules for execution by the processor according to context information from the electronic network. The control state machine includes a switch address generator, a return address register, and a program counter select. The switch address generator outputs a switch address, which is an address for a first instruction for a selected-context instruction module. The return address register stores a return address, which is an address of a next consecutive instruction, when an instruction module is interrupted for a context switch. The program counter select outputs the switch address, the return address, or a next consecutive address to select the appropriate instruction in the memory for execution by the processor.