Methods, system and article of manufacture for pre-fetching...

Details Methods, system and article of manufacture for pre-fetching... Methods, system and article of manufacture for pre-fetching...

2005-02-15

2005-02-15

Gaffin, Jeffrey (Department: 2182)

Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/

Input/output data processing

Data transfer specifying

C710S005000, C710S006000, C710S035000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06857030

ABSTRACT:
A system and method for reducing the number of memory accesses by a hardware device to a descriptor memory is disclosed. Methods, systems and articles of manufacture consistent with the present invention enable software to embed a subsequent descriptor it is posting in the descriptor memory into a current descriptor listed in the descriptor memory. Additionally, hardware is configured to transmit a data packet associated with the current descriptor to a recipient device. When hardware receives an acknowledgment message from the recipient device associated with the transmitted data packet, it fetches the current descriptor to update a completion code within the current descriptor using a Read-Modify-Write (RMW) transfer sequence. As part of the RMW memory operation, hardware may use the embedded copy of the subsequent descriptor within the current descriptor to transmit the next data packet associated with the subsequent descriptor. This process avoids hardware from having to fetch the embedded descriptor from the descriptor memory before transmitting the next data packet.

REFERENCES:
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patent: 5870627 (1999-02-01), O'Toole et al.
patent: 6202107 (2001-03-01), Collier
patent: 6411724 (2002-06-01), Vaithilingam et al.
patent: 6643757 (2003-11-01), Fontijn
patent: 1414273 (2004-04-01), None

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