On-demand transfer engine
US6230215A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 10, 1998 |
| Grant date | May 8, 2001 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Nov 10, 2018 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY02D10/00
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An on-demand transfer (ODT) engine is located in each peripheral in a host/peripheral system communicating using a burst mode bus, e.g., a PCI bus. Each peripheral transfers blocks by setting, e.g., a starting address and block size of a data block to be transferred. Importantly, the starting location of a data transfer stream is maintained in a common memory area, e.g., in the host, while the length of the data transfer block is maintained in the ODT engine. By maintaining the length of the data block in the ODT engine, the peripheral can change the length of a block in a continual data stream on the fly, without the need to communicate with the host computer or common data transfer device such as a DMA. In the disclosed embodiment, up to 128 data streams may be simultaneously transferred.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.