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AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsJames S. Fields, Jr., Benjiman L. Goodman, Guy L. Guthrie, William J. Starke, Jeffrey A. Stuecheli
Estimating the term…
In a data processing system, a plurality of agents communicate operations therebetween. Each operation includes a request and a combined response representing a system-wide response to the request. Within data storage in the data processing system, a data structure indicates a duration of a protection window extension for each of the plurality of agents. Each protection window extension is a period following receipt of a combined response during which an associated one of the plurality of agents protects transfer of coherency ownership of a data granule between agents. Each of the plurality of agents is configured with a duration of a protection window extension by reference to the data structure, and at least two of the agents have protection window extensions of differing durations. The plurality of agents thereafter employ the configured protection window extensions.
A data processing system, comprising:
A method of data processing in a data processing system, said method comprising:
A program product for configuring a data processing system including a plurality of agents communicating operations therebetween, each operation including a request and a combined response representing a system-wide response to the request, said program product comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Using a bus scheme, e.g. with bus monitoring or watching means: in combination with broadcast means
Computing and data processing
About 1 year 9 months of term left · ends 30 Jul 2028 (estimated)
The present application is related to the following U.S. Patent Application(s), which are assigned to the assignee hereof and incorporated herein by reference in their entireties: U.S. patent application Ser No. 11/560,619, filed concurrently herewith; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/055,305; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/054,841.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to data processing systems and, in particular, to improved communication in a data processing system.
The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. However, the invention, as well as a preferred mode of use, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a high level block diagram of an exemplary processing unit in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a high level block diagram of an exemplary data processing system in accordance with the present invention;
I. Processing Unit and Data Processing System
With reference now to the figures and, in particular, with reference to FIG. 1, there is illustrated a high level block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a processing unit 100 in accordance with the present invention. In the depicted embodiment, processing unit 100 is a single integrated circuit including two processor cores 102a, 102b for independently processing instructions and data. Each processor core 102 includes at least an instruction sequencing unit (ISU) 104 for fetching and ordering instructions for execution and one or more execution units 106 for executing instructions. The instructions executed by execution units 106 may include, for example, fixed and floating point arithmetic instructions, logical instructions, and instructions that request read and write access to a memory block.
The operation of each processor core 102a, 102b is supported by a multi-level volatile memory hierarchy having at its lowest level one or more shared system memories 132 (only one of which is shown in FIG. 1) and, at its upper levels, one or more levels of cache memory. As depicted, processing unit 100 includes an integrated memory controller (IMC) 124 that controls read and write access to a system memory 132 in response to requests received from processor cores 102a, 102b and operations snooped on an interconnect fabric (described below) by snoopers 126.