Patent ID: 7500029

Claim:
A method of combining outbound write transactions in a chip coupled between a processor and an input/output (I/O) device comprising: receiving, at the chip, outbound write transactions of write data sent from the processor to the (I/O) device; combining, within a write combining storage area on the chip, the outbound write transactions of the write data into a packet until a maximum length of the write data is obtained; receiving a flush request signal from the I/O device requesting a flush of the packet stored in the write combining storage area; and in response to receiving the flush request signal from the I/O device, repeatedly detecting whether the packet stored in the write combining storage area has grown to the maximum length packet of write data; and flushing the requested packet to the I/O device over a bus whenever the packet is determined to have grown to the maximum length, each maximum length packet being a packet of maximum payload of the write data that can be formulated within the write combining storage area while adhering to packet protocol rules for the bus.