Patent · US Expired

Buffer sharing in host controller

US7165125B2 · kind B2 · utility

8Cited by

11References

49Claims

0Family size

Assignee

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. · US

Inventors

Robert Lissel · Reutlingen, DE
Bernd Schönfelder · Ochtrup, DE
Frank Barth · Radebeul, DE

Key dates

Filing date	Apr 2, 2004
Grant date	Jan 16, 2007
Priority date	—
Expiry date	Aug 3, 2025

Classification

Technology area (CPC G)Physics
CPC primaryG06F13/385
WIPO fieldComputer technology
WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A storage device host controller such as an SATA (Serial ATA) host controller and a corresponding method are provided for performing host-to-device and device-to-host communications in a PIO (Programmed I/O) data transfer mode and a DMA (Direct Memory Access) data transfer mode. The host controller comprises a buffer unit for buffering data and a data stream selection unit for selecting a data stream for submission to the buffer unit. The data stream selection unit is connected to receive at any one time at least one of a host-to-device data stream in the PIO data transfer mode, a host-to-device data stream in the DMA data transfer mode, a device-to-host data stream in the PIO data transfer mode, and a device-to-host data stream in the DMA data transfer mode, and select from the received data streams the data stream to be submitted to the buffer unit.

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