Enhanced bus architecture for posted read operation between masters and slaves

A system comprising:

• a master device;
• a slave device;
• and
• a system bus coupled to said master device and coupled to said slave device for exchange of electronic signals there between wherein said system bus includes:
• a master bus portion comprising signals used by said master device to arbitrate for control of said master bus portion and further comprising signals used by said master device to initiate read and write bus transactions with said slave device;
• a read bus portion comprising signals used by said master device and by said slave device for return of data requested by read transaction initiated by said master device;
• and
• a slave bus portion comprising signals used only by said slave device to arbitrate for control of said read bus portion by said slave device.

A system comprising:

• a master bus;
• a master device coupled to said master bus;
• a slave bus;
• and
• a slave device coupled to said master bus and coupled to said slave bus,
• wherein said master device initiates read operations directed to said slave device over said master bus,
• wherein multiple said read operations are posted to said slave device by said master device,
• wherein only said slave device arbitrates over said slave bus with other slave devices coupled to said slave bus for temporary exclusive access to a read portion of said master bus, and
• wherein said slave device returns requested data for each of said multiple of said read operations to said master device over said read portion in response to winning the arbitration over said slave bus for temporary exclusive control of said read portion.