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:
Dec. 14, 2004
Filed:
May. 17, 2001
Kenneth H. Potter, Raleigh, NC (US);
Trevor Garner, Apex, NC (US);
Cisco Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and technique off-loads responsibility for maintaining order among requests directed to a same address on a split transaction bus from a processor to a split transaction bus controller, thereby increasing the performance of the processor. The present invention comprises an ordering circuit that enables the controller to defer issuing a subsequent (write) request directed to an address on the bus until a previous (read) request directed to the same address completes. By off-loading responsibility for maintaining order among requests from the processor to the controller, the invention enhances performance of the processor since the processor may proceed with program execution without having to stall to ensure such ordering. The ordering circuit maintains ordering in an efficient manner that is transparent to the processor.