Patent ID: 9288258
Filing Date: 2016-03-15
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L

Claim Text:
1. An integrated circuit comprising: a plurality of master units configured to generate communication transactions; interconnect circuitry coupled to said plurality of master units and configured to carry said communication transactions; and one or more slave units coupled to said interconnect circuitry and configured to respond to said communication transactions; wherein said interconnect circuitry is configured to provide a plurality of virtual networks, each virtual network connecting at least one of said plurality of master units to at least one of said one or more slave units and including a plurality of network nodes, at least two of said plurality of virtual networks being overlapping virtual networks having an overlapped portion that shares a physical communication link between at least two of said plurality of network nodes; and at least network nodes within said overlapped portion perform node-to-node token based communication flow management whereby: (i) before asserting communication signals corresponding to a communication transaction with a target slave unit via one of said overlapping virtual networks, at least network nodes within said overlapped portion are configured to assert a token request upon said overlapping virtual network to request a token signal for said overlapping virtual network from a next network node downstream within said overlapping virtual network toward said target slave unit and not to assert said communication signals upon said physical communication link shared with another overlapping virtual network until said token signal is received; and (ii) said next network node receiving said token request blocks return of said token signal until said next network node is ready to receive said communication signals.