US 6,105,075 A · Scatter gather memory system for a hardware accelerated command interpreter engine

Abstract

A hardware accelerated memory system in a hardware accelerated I/O data processing engine that gathers and maintains pointers to a set of widely distributed source and/or destination data locations. The locations of the source and/or destination data locations operated on by the I/O data processing engine can include a memory local to the command interpreter and a memory remote from but accessible to the command interpreter by way of an I/O bus. Each source and/or destination scatter/gather list contains pointers to actual data locations that are either in a memory local to the command interpreter or a memory remote from the command interpreter but accessible by way of an interconnecting I/O bus. Each data location entry in a scatter/gather list is also accompanied by a byte count indicative of the total number of bytes at a given data location.

Claims12

Dependent claims

An improved performance scatter gather memory system for use in a command interpreter of an I/O controller for a local host processor, said system comprising:

a random access memory in said command interpreter;
a plurality of counter registers operatively connected to said random access memory;
means for maintaining at least one list that contains at least one data location and data quantity pair in said random access memory;
a plurality of processor commands;
and
means for updating an actual location and quantity of data pointed by successive ones of said at least one data location and data quantity pair, in operational support of each of said plurality of processor commands in a manner independent of said local host processor and absent any controlling software.

3 more elements

A method for using a scatter gather memory system in a command interpreter of an I/O controller, said command interpreter having a command queue, a logic unit, at least one local memory, and a controlling state machine, said method comprising:

retrieving data pointed to by successive ones of at least one scatter gather list, wherein each of said at least one scatter gather list includes at least one element and each of said at least one element includes a data location and a total byte count of a number of bytes in said data location, all operable in a manner independent of said local host processor operation and absent direct software control;
and
maintaining a plurality of data pointers during operation of a command interpreter command to identify a present data location and a remaining number of bytes at said present data location that corresponds to a present one of said at least one element in a present one of said at least one scatter gather list, in a manner independent of said local host processor operation and absent direct software control.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Scatter gather memory system for a hardware accelerated command interpreter engine

Life of this patent

Scatter gather memory system for a hardware accelerated command interpreter engine

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims12