Patent · US Expired

Computer system having a multimedia bus and including improved time slotting and bus allocation

US5951664A · kind A · utility

103Cited by
21References
14Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 10, 1997
Grant dateSep 14, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 10, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F13/4027
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A computer system optimized for real-time applications which provides increased performance over current computer architectures. The system includes a standard local system bus or expansion bus, such as the PCI bus, and also includes a dedicated real-time bus or multimedia bus. Various multimedia devices are coupled to one or more of the expansion bus and/or the multimedia bus. The multimedia bus is preferably time sliced wherein time slices or time slots are allocated in proportion to the required bandwidth. Each multimedia device includes programmable time slotting logic which determines the appropriate time slot. In one embodiment, the time slices are each a constant size and a number of the equal sized time slots are allocated to respective data streams in proportion to the required bandwidth. Alternatively, the time slots are dynamically sized or allocated to data streams in proportion to the required bandwidth. The computer system of the present invention thus provides greater performance for real-time applications than prior systems.

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