Method and apparatus for connecting an additional processor to a bus with symmetric arbitration
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsMason Cabot, Frank Hady, John Beck
Life of this patent
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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.
Claims23
An agent, comprising:
- a first interface to exchange arbitration signals with a priority agent;
- a second interface to receive a first symmetric agent bus request;
- and
- a third interface to issue a priority agent bus request when said first symmetric agent bus request is released.
A system, comprising:
- a first symmetric agent to issue a first symmetric agent bus request;
- a first agent to receive said first symmetric agent bus request and to issue a priority agent bus request;
- and
- a priority agent to grant permission to said first agent to issue said priority agent bus request.
A method, comprising:
- monitoring a first symmetric agent bus request;
- arbitrating a priority agent bus request;
- and
- issuing said priority agent bus request when said monitoring shows said first symmetric agent bus request is released.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.