Patent ID: 7907623

Claim:
A gateway for automatically routing messages between buses, comprising: (a) multiple communication components configured to temporarily store and transmit messages via the buses; and (b) a gateway control unit connected to the communication components via a system bus to exchange messages, the gateway control unit configured to receive notification from each communication component of an occurrence therein of a message to be routed as an external event, the gateway control unit including: (b1) a vector memory configured to store communication component vectors provided for each communication component, which indicates a point in time of a next expected internal event for a message and indicates a vector jump address to a message vector which indicates a configurable point in time of an internal event that is to be triggered by an associated message and indicates an instruction jump address; (b2) a memory configured to store instructions which are addressable using the instruction jump address indicated in the message vector; and (b3) a sequence control system which, at least one of (a) when an internal event occurs whose point in time in a message vector and (b) when an external event occurs, is configured to read the communication component vector associated with the particular communication component from the vector memory and to use the vector jump address contained therein to read the instruction jump address of the addressed message vector, and then to read and execute at least one instruction from the instruction memory using the instruction jump address that has been read, and the points in time indicated in the vectors are updated.