Patent ID: 6961800

Claim:
A method of processing a request in a computer system, comprising the acts of: (a) initiating a read request from a requesting agent, the requesting agent residing on a bus, wherein the read request has an address corresponding to a memory location; (b) receiving the read request at a processor controller; (c) sending the read request from the processor controller to an access controller; (d) sending a deferred reply from the processor controller to the requesting agent when the processor controller is free to process the read request, regardless of whether data corresponding to the read request has been delivered from the memory location to the processor controller wherein the deferred reply is sent before data corresponding to the read request is delivered to the access controller; (e) delivering data residing at the address corresponding to the memory location to the access controller; (f) delivering the data from the access controller to the processor controller; and (g) delivering the data from the processor controller to the requesting agent.