Patent ID: 7966379

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a first bus; a plurality of slave devices coupled to the first bus; and a master device comprising an event polling controller and an embedded processor, and coupled to the first bus, and configured to initiate a polling transaction over the first bus to poll at least a subset of the plurality of slave devices for event information used for conveying a plurality of distinct asynchronous event types; wherein, in response to the polling transaction, at least one of the at least a subset of the plurality of slave devices is configured to transmit first event information to the master device over the first bus, wherein the first event information corresponds to a first event type of the plurality of distinct asynchronous event types, and indicates an associated asynchronous event of the first event type in the at least one of the at least a subset of the plurality of slave devices; wherein the master device is configured to receive the first event information from the at least one of the at least a subset of the plurality of slave devices over the first bus, and determine where to forward the received first event information based on the first event type, wherein if the first event type is an event notification for the embedded processor, the event polling controller is configured to forward the received first event information to the embedded processor; wherein the first bus is configured to carry synchronous data transactions between the master device and the at least a subset of the plurality of slave devices.