Patent ID: 7698478
Filing Date: 2010-04-13
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A system comprising: at least one processor; and a peripheral interface controller coupled to the processor and coupled to receive transactions from a peripheral interface, wherein the peripheral interface controller is configured to accumulate freed credits for a given transaction type of a plurality of transaction types, wherein the freed credits correspond to transactions of the given transaction type, and wherein the transactions were received by the peripheral interface controller from the peripheral interface, and wherein the peripheral interface controller is configured to accumulate the freed credits for a plurality of transactions of the given transaction type, wherein the freed credits are not yet returned to a transmitter on the peripheral interface, and wherein the peripheral interface controller is configured to cause transmission of a flow control update transaction on the peripheral interface to the transmitter on the peripheral interface responsive to a number of the freed credits at the peripheral interface controller meeting or exceeding a threshold amount that is less than a total number of credits allocated to the given transaction type, and wherein the peripheral interface controller is configured to generate the flow control update transaction without regard to a number of available credits at the transmitter, and wherein the flow control update transaction communicates the freed credits to the transmitter, and wherein the peripheral interface controller is configured to accumulate the freed credits only for transactions received by the peripheral interface controller from the single transmitter on the peripheral interface to which the peripheral interface controller is coupled, and wherein the peripheral interface controller is configured to generate the flow control update transaction only for the single transmitter on the peripheral interface to which the peripheral interface controller is coupled.