Patent · US Expired

Multiprocessor system with switchable address space

US4396978A · kind A · utility

22Cited by
2References
2Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateFeb 13, 1980
Grant dateAug 2, 1983
Priority date
Expiry dateFeb 13, 2000

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F15/17
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

In a data processing system comprising at least two microcomputers, one microcomputer (1) serves as a master to control the or each other microcomputer (2, 3 respectively) as a slave. In order to improve that utilization of the system the bus (4) of the master serves as a common bus and each slave has associated with it a buffer memory (5, 6 respectively) for the intermediate storage and transmission of data. The buffer memory can be connected, by means of an associated switching device (7, 8 respectively), alternately to the bus (9, 10, respectively) of the slave and to the common bus thereby switching the address field constituted by the buffer memory into the address space of the slave and into the address space of the master respectively. Furthermore, each slave has associated with it two interconnected input/output interfaces (11, 12 and 13, 14 respectively which serve for transmission of status signals concerning the master of the relevant slave. One of said interfaces is connected to the common bus, while the other interface is connected to the bus of the relevant slave. Each switching device is controlled by the corresponding input/output interface connected to the common b…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.