Patent · US Expired

SCB array external to a host adapter integrated circuit

US5625800A · kind A · utility

25Cited by
16References
23Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 30, 1994
Grant dateApr 29, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 30, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F13/387
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The performance of a host adapter integrated circuit is enhanced by storing blocks of information for SCSI I/O target commands, i.e, hardware request blocks, in a structure external to the host adapter integrated circuit. Since the number of blocks that is stored in the external structure is typically significantly greater than the number of blocks that can be stored in onboard registers of the host adapter integrated circuit, a high speed method for retrieving information from a particular block within the external structure is provided so that the appropriate block of information can be passed to the host adapter integrated circuit without delays associated with serially scanning through all of the blocks. Several structures are used in the external memory to manage the hardware request blocks. The structures include a hardware request block array, a hardware request block address array, a queue-in FIFO structure, a queue-out FIFO structure and a busy targets table.

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