Patent · US Expired

System for memory based interrupt queue in a memory of a multiprocessor system

US6240483A · kind A · utility

10Cited by
4References
22Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 26, 1998
Grant dateMay 29, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 26, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F12/0646
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An interrupt mechanism which reduces or eliminates the need for an interrupt status register while at the same time provides suitable information to a host or other processor with respect to the cause and parameters surrounding an interrupt signal. An interrupt queue is maintained in shared memory accessible by both a host and an interrupting agent. The interrupt queue has a capacity or two or more separate interrupt requests, either from a same interrupting agent or from two different interrupting agents. As interrupting agents write to the interrupt queue, an agent current interrupt pointer (ACIP) is incremented to a next position in the interrupt queue. As the host services interrupts, the current host pointer is incremented to clear the serviced interrupt request entry.

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