Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
LOW OVERHEAD HIGH BANDWIDTH DATA TRANSFER PROTOCOL

Abstract:

A processing system includes a controller of a transmitting module for transmitting data to a receiving module across an interconnect compliant with a processor interconnect protocol. The controller indicates the beginning and end of a variable-length data burst using data primitives that are N symbols (bytes) in length, rather than using data primitives that are M symbols in length, as specified by the processor interconnect protocol, where N<M. The controller of the transmitting module signals the beginning of a data burst by sending a short primitive indicating either the beginning of a data burst or signaling the receiving module to reset error detection logic so that error detection information based on the data burst can be calculated. The controller automatically inserts another short primitive indicating the end of a data burst when there is no data to transmit, thus accommodating data bursts of variable lengths.