DMA controller arrangement having plurality of DMA controllers a

Details DMA controller arrangement having plurality of DMA controllers a DMA controller arrangement having plurality of DMA controllers a

1995-09-29

1998-07-14

Meky, Moustafa M.

G06F 1502

Patent

active

057817995

ABSTRACT:
A method and arrangement for performing direct memory access in a computer system having multi-channel direct memory access (DMA) is provided with a host computer having a main memory and a processor that runs software, a system interface bus coupling the host computer and the main memory, and multiple DMA controllers, on separate chips, coupled to the system interface bus. These multiple DMA controllers provide the system with multiple input/output (I/O) channels. A common buffer pool having a plurality of buffers is accessible to each of the multiple channels for buffering data transferred to or from the host computer. A status queue is also provided, with each entry in the status queue indicating whether a corresponding buffer from the common pool of buffers is a free buffer available for use by one of the DMA channels in a DMA transaction. The status queue is searched for an entry in the status queue which indicates whether its corresponding buffer is a free buffer, when a DMA transaction is to occur over one of the DMA channels. When a free buffer is found, the entry in the status queue and the free buffer are claimed by the DMA channel. The starting address of the free buffer is then determined and data is buffered within the free buffer.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4956771 (1990-09-01), Neustaedter
patent: 5289583 (1994-02-01), Fischer et al.
patent: 5444853 (1995-08-01), Lentz
patent: 5450591 (1995-09-01), Palmer
patent: 5493652 (1996-02-01), Koufopavlou et al.
patent: 5606559 (1997-02-01), Badger et al.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

DMA controller arrangement having plurality of DMA controllers a does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with DMA controller arrangement having plurality of DMA controllers a, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and DMA controller arrangement having plurality of DMA controllers a will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1893426