Patents by Inventor David A. Penry

David A. Penry has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 6100732
    Abstract: A phase-enable circuit clocks a first functional unit at a first frequency and a second functional unit at a second frequency. Each of the first and second functional units is provided with a first clock signal of the first frequency. A phase-enable generator then uses the first clock signal and a second clock signal of a second frequency lower than the first frequency to develop a phase-enable signal that periodically disables a clock input terminal of the second functional unit so that the second functional unit is clocked at the second frequency. Changing the frequency of the second clock to zero switches the phase-enable circuit into another mode of operation. In that mode, the clock input terminal of the second functional unit is constantly enabled and the first and second functional units are each clocked at the first frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 1997
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2000
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: David A. Penry, Kevin B. Normoyle
  • Patent number: 5944808
    Abstract: A PCI-to-PCI bridge circuit configurable to pass a parity error from one bus to the other bus during a prefetch includes a first interface for interfacing with a first PCI bus, a second interface for interfacing with to a second PCI bus, and a parity correction logic circuit. In response to one of a set of predetermined read commands from a device on the first PCI bus to read data from a device on the second PCI bus, the bridge circuit will initiate a prefetch transaction on the second PCI bus to read the requested data from the device on the second PCI bus. The parity correction logic circuit is coupled to receive from the first interface a first byte enable signal and a second byte enable signal, which are part of the read transaction on the first PCI bus. The parity correction logic circuit is also coupled to receive from the second interface a parity signal corresponding to the prefetch transaction on the second PCI bus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 1997
    Date of Patent: August 31, 1999
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventor: David A. Penry