Patent ID: 7072998

Claim:
A method of generating a full signal used by a FIFO device, the method comprising: checking one or more pipelines for valid data, wherein the one or more pipelines are coupled in a series, wherein the one or more pipelines may comprise data to be written to the FIFO device and wherein each of the one or more pipelines is coupled to each of one or more validity registers, each validity register storing a valid bit wherein the valid bit comprises a zero if the corresponding pipeline has no valid data, and wherein the valid bit comprises an one if the corresponding pipeline has valid data; wherein the one or more validity registers are coupled in series; adding a total number of pipelines comprising valid data to a count output of an up-down counter to produce a sum by aggregating the valid bit in each of the one or more validity registers with the count output, wherein data stored in each pipeline that is not a pipeline last in the series is piped to a pipeline next in the series at each clock cycle, and wherein the valid bit stored in each validity register that is not a validity register last in the series is piped to a validity register next in the series at each clock cycle; comparing the sum to a storage capacity value of the FIFO device; and generating a full signal upon the sum equaling the storage capacity value of the FIFO device; wherein the FIFO device receives data only from the pipeline last in the series; wherein the up-down counter counts up at a clock cycle upon receiving an asserted write enable signal and counts down at a clock cycle upon receiving an asserted read enable signal.