US 2010/0250996 A1Published application

Preventing Hangs in a System with Synchronized Operation Using Stalls

AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated

InventorGary L. Swoboda

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Abstract

This invention is a method of operating a system having multiple finite state machines where each finite state machine generating a ready signal when its operation is complete. This invention selects a set of the finite state machines to participate in an operation. If one or more of the finite state machines are selected for operation, the method waits until all selected finite state machines generate the ready signal. If none of the finite state machines are selected for operation, the method waits until at least one non-selected finite state machine generates the ready signal. This waiting can be accomplished with a precharge-conditional discharge circuit used for voting.

Claims2

Dependent claims

A method of operating a system having multiple finite state machines, each finite state machine generating a ready signal when its operation is complete, comprising the steps of:

selecting a set of the finite state machines to participate in an operation;
supplying input to the multiple finite state machines;
if a plurality of the finite state machines are selected for operation, waiting until all selected finite state machines generate the ready signal;
if only one of the finite state machines is selected for operation, waiting until the selected finite state machine generates the ready signal;
if none of the finite state machines are selected for operation, waiting until at least one non-selected finite state machine generates the ready signal;
obtaining output from the selected finite state machines.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.