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:
Sep. 04, 2007
Filed:
Sep. 28, 2004
Mason B. Cabot, San Francisco, CA (US);
Frank T. Hady, Portland, OR (US);
John C. Beck, Northboro, MA (US);
Mason B. Cabot, San Francisco, CA (US);
Frank T. Hady, Portland, OR (US);
John C. Beck, Northboro, MA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for adding an additional agent to a set of symmetric agents in a bus-based system is disclosed. In one embodiment, the number of symmetric agents in the system is fixed. An additional agent may monitor the symmetric arbitration of the symmetric agents, and at a given stage of the symmetric arbitration assert a priority agent bus request. The priority agent bus request may be shared with another priority agent. This may permit the additional agent to access the bus in a fair manner that behaves as though it were an additional symmetric agent in the system.