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:
Jul. 27, 2004
Filed:
Feb. 13, 2001
Michael Ott, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Silicon Access Networks, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for resolving priority among a plurality of data values. The priority resolution method of the invention analyzes the data values one bit at a time, starting from the most significant bit. In one embodiment, at an initial analysis step, the method determines whether the most significant bits of the data values are asserted. If at least one of the most significant bits is asserted, the data values that have unasserted most significant bits are eliminated from consideration. If none of the most significant bits is asserted, none of the data values will be eliminated at the initial step. The same analysis steps are repeated for each successive bit until only the largest data values remain. The priority resolution method of the present invention may be used to determine the smallest data value. In that embodiment, the data values are first bit-wise inverted.