Appeal No. 2007-0340
Application 10/057,259
APPELLANT’S INVENTION
Appellant’s invention employs a scoreboard to initiate a data time-out
sequence in a processor-based system whenever a requested transaction takes
substantially longer than a predetermined latency period (Specification 4:19-5:2).
Referring to Figure 4, the scoreboard 400, which is located on an expander
board 40, includes plural storage locations 410(1-m) each capable of storing a
transaction data identifier that can include a client ID 411(1-m), a client tag 412(1-
m), a first timer flag 413(1-m), and a second timer flag 414(1-m) (id. at 14:16-20).
A first client 420 requests data from a second client 430 by sending a signal
to Address Expander Queue (AXQ) 395 (id. at 12:23 and 14:22-15:3). AXQ 395
transmits transaction data identifiers identifying first client 420 and second client
430 to scoreboard 400, which stores that information in client tag 412(1-m) and
client ID 411(1-m), respectively, of one of locations 410(1-m) (id. at 15:3-7).
If first client 420 substantially receives the requested data from second client
430, first client 420 notifies scoreboard 400 that the transaction is substantially
complete, at which time the scoreboard clears the corresponding client ID 41l(1-m)
and client tag 412(1-m) from the storage location 410(1-m) (id. at 15:21-16:2).
The failure of first client 420 to substantially receive the requested data can
cause it to remain in an idle state while it waits for the requested data (id. at 16:9-
10). Under these circumstances it is desirable to generate and transmit fill code to
first client 420 after a predetermined latency period has substantially expired (id. at
16:13-15). This fill code need not correspond to the requested data but may permit
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