Transmitting peer-to-peer transactions through a coherent interface

• US 7,210,000 B2
• Filed: 04/27/2004
• Issued: 04/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tahoe Research Limited (f/k/a Learndale Limited) (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Ajanovic, Jasmin, Muthrasanallur, Sridhar, Blankenship, Robert G., Creta, Kenneth C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee; Christopher E.
• Application Number:
  US10/832,607
• Publication Number:
  US 20050251611A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,092 Days
• Field of Search: 709/238, 709/250, 709/206, 709/227, 709/220, 709/201, 710/30, 710/105, 710/316, 370/398, 370/235, 370/362, 370/401, 370/389, 370/392, 370/338, 711/144, 711/163, 726/15, 714/758
• US Class Current: 710/316
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/387 for adaptation of different data processing systems to different peripheral devices, e.g. protocol converters for incompatible systems, open system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4265 on a point to point bus G06F13/4247, G06F13/4282 take precedence

Abstract

In various embodiments, the present invention includes a method for receiving a transaction having first header information from a first peer device at a first agent of a coherent system, inserting second header information onto the transaction, and routing the transaction to a second peer device using the second header information. In one such embodiment, the first header may be a header of a first protocol and the second header may be of a different protocol that is used to tunnel the transaction through the coherent system.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a transaction from a first peer device of a coherent platform at a first agent of the coherent platform, the transaction having first header information;

inserting second header information onto the transaction; and

routing the transaction through at least one other agent of the coherent platform to a second peer device of the coherent platform using the second header information.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising retaining the first header information when transferring the transaction from the first agent to a second agent of the coherent platform via a point-to-point interconnect.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising routing the transaction from the first agent to the second agent through at least one intermediate coherent device of the coherent platform without translating the first header information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the second header information comprises a system interconnect header including a transaction identifier to uniquely identify the transaction between the first agent and the at least one other agent.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising preserving an end-to-end redundancy check when routing the transaction.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the transaction via a first channel of a port of the first agent and routing the transaction from the first agent via a second channel of the port.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein inserting the second header information comprises inserting a first header having information for a first virtual channel and inserting a second header having information for a second virtual channel.

8. A method comprising:

tunneling a transaction from a first peer device coupled to a first hub of a coherent platform to a second peer device coupled to a second hub of the coherent platform through a common system fabric of the coherent platform, wherein information associated with the transaction is preserved through the common system fabric.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the transaction comprises a write transaction, and the first hub splits the transaction into a plurality of write packets each having a system interconnect header, the information, and a portion of data of the transaction.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising combining the plurality of write packets in the second hub and transmitting the write transaction to the second peer device and sending a completion packet from the second hub to the first hub after receipt of each of the plurality of write packets.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising sending the completion packet on a different channel than the plurality of write packets.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising holding remaining ones of the plurality of write packets in the first hub until receipt of the completion packet from the second hub.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the transaction comprises a read transaction, and the second hub splits read data from the second peer device into a plurality of read packets each having a system interconnect header, the information, and a portion of the read data.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising combining the plurality of read packets in the first hub and transmitting the transaction to the first peer device and sending a completion packet from the first hub to the second hub after receipt of each of the plurality of read packets.

15. The method of claim 8, further comprising tunneling a plurality of transactions from the first peer device to the second peer device using a plurality of address spaces including a memory address space, an input/output address space, a configuration address space, and a message address space.

16. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving the transaction via a first channel of a port of the first hub and forwarding the transaction to the second hub via a second channel of the port.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein tunneling the transaction comprises inserting into the transaction a first header having information for a first virtual channel and inserting a second header having information for a second virtual channel.

18. An article comprising a machine-accessible storage medium containing instructions that if executed enable a system to:

tunnel a transaction from a first peer device coupled to a first hub of a coherent platform to a second peer device coupled to a second hub of the coherent platform through a common system fabric of the coherent platform, wherein information associated with the transaction is preserved through the common system fabric.

19. The article of claim 18, further comprising instructions that if executed enable the system to split a write transaction into a plurality of write packets each having a system interconnect header, the information, and a portion of data of the transaction.

20. The article of claim 19, further comprising instructions that if executed enable the system to combine the plurality of write packets in an agent of the coherent platform and transmit the write transaction to the second peer device and send a completion packet from the agent after receipt of each of the plurality of write packets.

21. An apparatus comprising

a first agent of a coherent platform to tunnel a transaction from a first peer device directly coupled to the first agent to a second peer device directly coupled to a second agent of the coherent platform through a common system fabric of the coherent platform, wherein information associated with the transaction is preserved through the common system fabric.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the first agent and the second agent comprise input/output hubs of the coherent platform and the first peer device and the second peer device comprise input/output devices.

23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the first agent is to receive the transaction via a first channel of a port of the first agent and forward the transaction to the second agent via a second channel of the port.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the first agent is to insert header information onto the transaction, the header information including a first header having information for a first virtual channel and inserting a second header having information for a second virtual channel.

25. A system comprising

a first peer device;

and

a first agent directly coupled to the first peer device to tunnel a transaction from the first peer device to a second peer device directly coupled to a second agent through a common system fabric of the system, the system comprising a coherent platform, wherein information associated with the transaction is preserved through the common system fabric.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the second agent is coupled to the first agent via a point-to-point interconnect, the second agent to receive the tunneled transaction from the first agent.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the first agent and the second agent comprise input/output hubs of the coherent platform.

28. The system of claim 25, wherein the first agent is adapted to insert header information onto the transaction, the header information usable to route the transaction to the second agent, wherein the header information includes a first header having information for a first virtual channel and a second header having information for a second virtual channel.

29. The system of claim 28, further comprising a third agent coupled between the first agent and the second agent, the third agent adapted to translate the header information.