Patent ID: 6078949
Filing Date: 2000-06-20
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A computer system, which comprises:a first device receiving input data and generating requests, for information relating to the input data, each of a plurality of said requests includes request data and request ownership information;a second device including an information lookup database comprising a plurality of entries, each one of the plurality of entries containing information relating to a corresponding request; anda request/response memory coupled to each of the first and second devices to interlock the first and second devices for an exchange of information;the first device operating to communicate to the second device, via the request/response memory, by said requests for information, each of the plurality of said requests for information, including request data and request ownership information being transmitted in a single write transaction to the request/response memory;the second device operating to use the request data from each of the plurality of said requests as a lookup index to the lookup database for access to and retrieval of a corresponding one of the entries to generate a response including response data and response ownership information, and to communicate each response to the first device, via the request/response memory, for use by the first device in processing the input data;the request/response memory comprising a plurality of entries, each of the entries including a request storage memory space for storing a request by the first device and a response storage memory space for storing a corresponding response by the second device, the request storage memory space for each entry being accessible to both the first and second devices;the request storage memory space of each one of the entries including a first preselected memory location for storage of request ownership information and a second preselected memory location for storage of request data;the response storage memory space of each one of the entries including a third preselected memory location for storage of response ownership information and a fourth preselected memory location for storage of response data;wherein the request ownership information of the first preselected memory location indicates whether the request data stored in the respective request storage memory space by the first device is valid for use by the second device and the response ownership information of the respective third preselected memory location indicates whether the response data stored in the respective response memory space by the second device is valid for use by the first device.