US Patent 9389906 Latency agnostic transaction buffer for request-grant protocols

According to one embodiment, an apparatus includes a transaction data storage to store transaction data to be transmitted over an interconnect of a data processing system, a transaction buffer coupled to the transaction data storage to buffer at least a portion of the transaction data, and a transaction logic coupled to the transaction data storage and the transaction buffer to transmit a request (REQ) signal to an arbiter associated with the interconnect in response to first transaction data that becomes available in the transaction data storage, in response to a grant (GNT) signal received from the arbiter, retrieve second transaction data from the transaction buffer and transmit the second transaction data onto the interconnect, and refill the transaction buffer with third transaction data retrieved from the transaction data storage after the second transaction data has been transmitted onto the interconnect.