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:
Apr. 11, 2006
Filed:
Jan. 31, 2003
Bangalore L. Priyadarshan, Fremont, CA (US);
Jaushin Lee, Saratoga, CA (US);
William N. Eatherton, San Jose, CA (US);
Bangalore L. Priyadarshan, Fremont, CA (US);
Jaushin Lee, Saratoga, CA (US);
William N. Eatherton, San Jose, CA (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
Methods and apparatus are disclosed for, inter alia, managing idle time and performing lookup operations to adapt to refresh requirements and/or operational rates of the particular associative memory or other devices used to implement the system. A system typically a controller coupled to a circuit including includes multiple associative memories. The controller receives performance information from at least one of the associative memories and generates idle time corresponding to the performance information. This performance information may include an actual refresh requirement for each of the associate memories or the worst-case requirement of one of the associative memories, so that the controller can intermittently provide the actual refresh cycles required, if any, by a particular implementation. This performance information may indicate for some or all instructions the actual time required by a particular instruction, so that the controller can operate based on the actual time required, rather than inefficiently operating on a worst-case time defined in a specification or data sheet.