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:
Oct. 21, 2003
Filed:
Apr. 18, 2000
Gary William Batchelor, Tucson, AZ (US);
Michael Thomas Benhase, Tucson, AZ (US);
Joseph Smith Hyde, II, Tucson, AZ (US);
Robert Earl Medlin, Tucson, AZ (US);
Juan Antonio Yanes, Tucson, AZ (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and system for controlling access to a bus for transferring data in the form of multibyte data streams. Data transfer agents are coupled to and request access to the bus to transfer data thereon. The system for controlling access to the bus comprises a bus arbiter responsive to the access requests of the data transfer agents, granting access to the bus to one data transfer agent at a time. A data length counter accumulates, during the grant of access, signals indicating the length of the data transferred between the bus and the data transfer agent. The data length counter indicates completion of the transfer of a predetermined length of data, and bus arbiter logic responds to the data length counter indicating the transfer completion, causing the bus arbiter to terminate the grant of access to the data transfer agent. The control of access to the bus is thus based on the precise measurement of the length of the transferred data, rather than on timers.