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General input/output architecture, protocol and related methods to implement flow control

  • US 7,536,473 B2
  • Filed: 08/23/2002
  • Issued: 05/19/2009
  • Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2001
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method comprising:

  • initializing a flow control mechanism within an general input/output (GIO) interface of a transmitting device, the flow control mechanism initially associated with a first virtual channel upon initialization of the first virtual channel;

    receiving, at the flow control mechanism from a GIO interface of a receiving device coupled with the GIO interface of the transmitting device via the virtual channel, an indication of a number of credits allocated for transmission of content from the transmitting device to the receiving device, wherein each credit indicates amount of content that can be transmitted;

    dynamically tracking, by the flow control mechanism of the transmitting device, buffer availability associated with the GIO interface of the receiving device via the first virtual channel by monitoring the indication of the number of credits; and

    selectively suspending, by the transmitting device, transmission of content to the remote GIO interface of the receiving device through the virtual channel when the GIO interface of the transmitting device determines that the receive buffer availability has reached a threshold amount;

    wherein the flow control mechanism of the transmitting device dynamically tracks the buffer availability using a first register to track a number of credits consumed, a second register to track a credit limit, and a third register to track a number of credits allowed by the receiver; and

    wherein the flow control mechanism of the transmitting device maintains and tracks separate indicators of credits for the following types of packet information for each virtual channel associated with the GIO interface;

    posted request headers (PH), posted request data (PD), non-posted request headers (NPH), non-posted request data (NPD), read write and message completion headers (CPLH), and read and message completion data (CPLD).

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