US Patent 7904629 Virtualized bus device

A virtualization of the internal interconnection bus, which results in a virtualized switch or virtualized multi-ported bridge. In the case of a PCI Express switch, one embodiment includes virtualization of the undefined interconnection bus. In the case of a Multi-ported bridge, one embodiment includes virtualization of the internal PCI/PCI-X bus. Through virtualization of the internal interconnection bus, the integrated circuit topology (the physical bridges and ports) may advantageously be spatially separated and remotely distributed far a field from the host computer, yet appear to the host system and host system software as single physical device (i.e. a normal PCIe switch or a normal multi-ported bridge).