Patent ID: 7539787

Claim:
A method of configuring a buffer within a local memory of a processor for DMA transfers comprising: reserving a first portion of the buffer for a DMA list, wherein the first portion is an upper address range of the buffer; configuring the first portion to at least store a DMA list for a DMA transfer, wherein the DMA list contains a plurality of command elements that correspond to data in a system memory, and wherein each command element of the plurality of command elements specifies an address of data to be transferred from the system memory using a DMA transfer; configuring the buffer to store return data, corresponding to the plurality of command elements, from the system memory throughout the buffer; overwriting the DMA list with the return data; and filling the buffer with return data from a lower address range to the upper address range of the buffer such that the DMA list is not overwritten prematurely, wherein the command elements further comprise a first portion representing the address of the corresponding data in system memory and a second portion representing a size of the corresponding return data in system memory, and wherein the command element size is less than or equal to the minimum corresponding return data size.