Patent 7617334 was granted and assigned to Hitachi on November, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In the host, an IP issues CCW, and a CH encodes the CCW and a CCW chain by the encode program to create a code including the description of controlling a conditional branch with the DKC and transmits the code to a PORT in the DKC. In the DKC, the PORT decodes the code by the decode program, and a CP sequentially processes each command obtained by the decoding and returns a return code representing the end state of the processing. The host receives the return code to recognize the end state of the processing.