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US 7,023,874 B2Granted
Distributed arbitration on a full duplex bus
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsJerrold V. Hauck, David W. LaFollette
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Distributed arbitration in a full-duplex bus system. By distributing the arbitration function among the nodes of a tree topology full-duplex bus system such that arbitration at any particular time is handled by a node holding a grant of the bus at that time (the nominal root node), a reverse flow direction towards the nominal root node is available for arbitration flow. This allows the discrete arbitration phase to be eliminated and generally improves bus efficiency.
Claims3
A method comprising:
- establishing a node as a nominal root node, the nominal root node being a node with a right to transmit a packet on a bus;
- and dynamically changing the nominal root node responsive to a change in right to transmit on the bus.
An apparatus comprising:
- a first port;
- and
- a physical layer (PHY) coupled to the first port that encodes a last packet of a subaction for transmission on a serial bus, the PHY arbitrating a next access to the serial bus and attaching a grant token to the last packet of the subaction to be transmitted out a highest priority port.
A system comprising:
- a full duplex serial bus;
- and
- a plurality of nodes coupled together in a tree topology by the serial bus wherein a node transmitting a current packet is a nominal root node of the tree topology and wherein each other node repeatedly transmits current arbitration information toward the nominal root node.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.