Patent ID: 7761642

Claim:
A communication system configured to conform to SATA standard and causing communication between one or more hosts and a SATA device comprising: a multi-port bridge device including, a command status manager (CSM) responsive to commands and status from one or more hosts the CSM including, a plurality of status managers, each one of the plurality of status managers coupled to transmit status information to a unique host, a plurality of incoming buffers, each one of the plurality of incoming buffers responsive to a unique host, a command issue state machine, a command pending table coupled to the command issue state machine and the command processor state machine and being operative to maintain track of commands received from the one or more hosts under the control of the command issue state machine, a drive queue table coupled of the command issue state machine and being operative to maintain track of the commands that are destined to be transmitted to a SATA device under the control of the command issue state machine, the command pending table and the drive queue table allowing acceptance of more commands from the one or more hosts than the SATA device is able to handle without concern to the one or more hosts; and a data manager (DM) responsive to data from one or more hosts for buffering data separately from that of commands and status.