Patent ID: 7979686

Claim:
A method for switching tasks of a processor in a network adapter of a computer networking appliance, comprising: extracting and altering, by the processor, a header of an incoming frame depending on which port of a plurality of ports the frame is received; in response to the incoming frame passing through a first port of the plurality of ports, generating, by a timer, an interrupt signal at one of a plurality of individual dedicated interrupt controllers of a hierarchical array of interrupt controllers; transmitting the interrupt signal to a root interrupt controller of the hierarchical array; selecting, by a multiplexer/demultiplexer using a task identifier, one of the plurality of individual dedicated interrupt controllers for a communication with the processor wherein a plurality of dedicated address spaces within a memory of the network adaptor are each associated with at least one of a predetermined number of tasks executable by the processor, and wherein the task identifier designates one of the dedicated address spaces for access by the processor; transmitting an interrupt and the task identifier to the processor; identifying a second task and switching, isochronously, by the processor, from a first task to the second task in response to the interrupt and the task identifier being received at the processor, the second task identified by the task identifier wherein switching further comprises, saving a first state of the first task to a corresponding dedicated address space of the memory, and loading a second state of the second task from the one dedicated address space designated by the task identifier; and accessing a dedicated memory address space corresponding to the second task.