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US 6,151,654 AGranted
Method and apparatus for encoded DMA acknowledges
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsDavid I. Poisner, Joseph A. Bennett, Andrew H. Gafken
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus which may be used for direct memory access (DMA) acknowledges. A method of acknowledging a request for access to a bus from a bus agent access involves receiving a request for access to the bus and generating a request acknowledge signal. The request acknowledge is generated on a multiplexed bus in response to the request for access to the bus.
Claims29
A method comprising:
- receiving a request for access to a bus from a bus agent on a request line;
- and
- generating a request acknowledge signal in response to the request for access to the bus on a plurality of multiplexed signal lines of a multiplexed bus that are coupled to a plurality of bus agents to provide acknowledge signals to said plurality of bus agents.
A method comprising:
- generating a request on a request line for a bus agent to access a bus;
- receiving a request acknowledge signal on a plurality of multiplexed signal lines of a multiplexed bus, the plurality of multiplexed signal lines being coupled to a plurality of bus agents to provide acknowledge signals to said plurality of bus agents;
- and
- determining if the request acknowledge signal is responsive to the request.
1 more element
A controller circuit comprising:
- request logic coupled to receive a request from a bus agent on a request line and coupled to generate an acknowledge signal in response to the request;
- and
- multiplexing logic coupled to multiplex at least one of data signals and address signals with the acknowledge signal onto a plurality of multiplexed signal lines of a controller circuit output bus.
A bus agent comprising:
- a bus interface control circuit coupled to generate a bus access request on a request line;
- and
- an acknowledge decode circuit coupled to receive a plurality of signals from a multiplexed bus having multiplexed signal lines that transmit acknowledge signals and at least one of address and data signals, and to detect when the bus access request generated by the bus interface control circuit has been acknowledged via the multiplexed bus.
A computer system comprising:
- a memory containing a program including a request that a data transfer be performed;
- a controller coupled to the memory via a first bus and coupled to a multiplexed bus, the multiplexed bus having a plurality of multiplexed signal lines to multiplex data, address, and control signals including acknowledge signals;
- a processor which is coupled to the memory and the controller and which executes the program thereby programming the controller to perform the data transfer;
- and
- a bus agent which requests commencement of the data transfer by the controller on a request line and decodes an acknowledge signal generated by the controller on the plurality of multiplexed signal lines.
2 more elements
A method comprising:
- receiving a DMA request from one of a plurality of DMA agents on a dedicated DMA request line for that one of the plurality of DMA agents;
- and
- generating an encoded DMA acknowledge cycle on a plurality of signal lines coupled to each of the plurality of DMA agents.
A computer system comprising:
- a memory;
- a processor coupled to the memory;
- a bus including a plurality of DMA acknowledge signal lines and a DMA plurality of DMA request lines;
- a plurality of DMA agents coupled to the plurality of DMA acknowledge signal lines, each DMA agent being capable of generating at least one of a plurality of DMA request signals on one of the plurality of DMA request lines dedicated to that DMA agent;
- and
- a controller coupled to the memory and the processor, the controller being coupled to receive the plurality of DMA request signals from the plurality of DMA agents, the controller also being coupled to generate an encoded DMA acknowledge signal on all of the plurality of DMA acknowledge signal lines.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.