Patent ID: 7606932

Claim:
A system, comprising: a device configured to initiate a transaction by sending an address packet including an address corresponding to stored data, wherein the address includes address bits; and an additional device configured to respond to the address packet, wherein the additional device is coupled to receive the address packet from the device via an address network; wherein the address packet further includes a mask field configured to indicate which of N quantities of the data are targeted by the transaction, where N comprises a non-zero whole number; wherein the address packet includes a granularity field configured to indicate a size, in bytes, of each of the N quantities of the data, wherein if the size is less than a maximum size, a portion of the granularity field stores additional address bits of an address of the N quantities of the data; and wherein if the size is the maximum size, none of the granularity field stores any additional address bits of the address of the N quantities of the data.