Patent ID: 7454538

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving data from a first domain at an input to a storage device in a second domain, wherein the first domain and the second domain operate at different data rates; receiving a continuous ready signal at a controller in the second domain in response to a first signal that is received from the first domain, the first signal indicating that the data is available at the input to the storage device; loading the data into the storage device in response to the continuous ready signal; clearing the continuous ready signal concurrently with loading the data into the storage device; and sending a second signal to increment a counter in the first domain when a data entry is read from the storage device; wherein, when space is not available in the storage device to store the data, the data is held at the input to the storage device in the second domain by a first register in the first domain until the storage device stores the data, and wherein the continuous ready signal is provided by a second register in the second domain, the second register configured to receive the first signal, and wherein clearing the continuous ready signal includes providing a clear signal from the controller to the second register.