Patent ID: 7716397

Claim:
A system comprising: a bus; a consuming device coupled to the bus adapted to receive and consume messages produced by another device; a data memory within the consuming device for storing said messages produced by another device to be consumed by the consuming device; and a producing device coupled to the bus and adapted to store messages in the data memory for consumption by the consuming device, wherein the consuming device signals the producing device when the message has been consumed, and wherein the producing device issues only write transactions and interrupt signals on the bus to transfer messages from the producing device to the consuming device, and wherein the consuming device issues a write transactions to signal that the transferred message has been consumed, and wherein the producing device further comprises: a management memory within the producing device for storing information regarding the total available space in said data memory of the consuming device, wherein the consuming device issues a write transaction to the producing device via the bus to store information in said management memory regarding the total available space in said data memory, wherein the producing device stores a message in said data memory for use by the consuming device, and wherein the producing device applies an interrupt signal to the consuming device via the bus to indicate to the consuming device that said message is available in said data memory.