"Multiprocessor arrangement including bus arbitration scheme involving plural CPU clusters that address each other as ""phantom"" CPUs"
US5935230A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jul 9, 1997 |
| Grant date | Aug 10, 1999 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 9, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F13/364
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
At least two clusters of CPUs are present in a multiprocessor computer system. Each CPU cluster has a given number of CPUs, each CPU having an associated ID such as an ID number. An additional ID number, not associated with a CPU in the same cluster, is associated with the opposite CPU cluster that appears to the original cluster as a "phantom" processor. A round-robin bus arbitration scheme allows ordered ownership of a common bus within a first cluster until the ID reaches the "phantom" processor, at which time bus ownership passes to a CPU in the second cluster. This arrangement is preferably symmetric, so that when a CPU from the first cluster requests ownership of the bus, it is granted bus ownership by virtue of the first cluster's appearance to the second cluster as a "phantom" CPU.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.