Broadcom Corporation

Broadcom Israel Research, Ltd.

Dov Hirshfeld

Shay Mizrachi

Eliezer Aloni

Rafi Shalom

Eliezer Tamir

Caitlin Bestler

Amit Oren

Uri Tal

Kobby Carmona

Guy Corem

Ori Hanegbi

Aviv Greenberg

Assaf Grunfeld

Merav Sicron

Kan (Frankie) Fan

Uri Elzur

Scott Sterling McDaniel

Patricia Ann Thaler

Steven B Lindsay

Pavel Anissimov

Mcrav Sicron

Hav Khauv

A network interface device for use with a host computer that includes a host processor and a memory, and which is configured to concurrently run a master operating system and at least one virtual operating system. The device includes a bus interface that communicates over a bus with the host processor and the memory, and a network interface, which is coupled to send and receive data packets carrying data over a packet network. A protocol processor is coupled between the bus interface and the network interface so as to convey the data between the network interface and the memory while performing protocol processing on the data packets under instructions from the at least one virtual operating system, while bypassing the master operating system.

Network interface device serving multiple host operating systems

Certain aspects of a method and system for transparent transmission control protocol (TCP) offload with best effort direct placement of incoming traffic are disclosed. Aspects of a method may include collecting TCP segments in a network interface card (NIC) processor without transferring state information to a host processor every time a TCP segment is received. When an event occurs that terminates the collection of TCP segments, the NIC processor may generate a new aggregated TCP segment based on the collected TCP segments. If a placement sequence number corresponding to the generated new TCP segment for the particular network flow is received before the TCP segment is received, the generated new TCP segment may be transferred directly from the memory to the user buffer instead of transferring the data to a kernel buffer, which would require further copy by the host stack from kernel buffer to user buffer.

Method and system for transparent TCP offload with best effort direct placement of incoming traffic

Certain aspects of a method and system for transparent transmission control protocol (TCP) offload are disclosed. Aspects of a method may include collecting TCP segments in a network interface card (NIC) processor without transferring state information to a host system. The collected TCP segments may be buffered in a coalescer. The coalescer may verify that the network flow associated with the collected TCP segments has an entry in a flow lookup table (FLT). When the FLT is full, the coalescer may close a current entry and assign the network flow to the available entry. The coalescer may also update information in the FLT. When an event occurs that terminates the collection of TCP segments, the coalescer may generate a single aggregated TCP segment based on the collected TCP segments. The aggregated TCP segment and state information may be communicated to the host system for processing.

Method and system for transparent TCP offload

Methods and systems for a fast drop recovery for a TCP connection are disclosed. Aspects of one method may include a receiving device on a network receiving an out-of-order data. The receiving device may then signal to a transmitting device on the network, which sent the out-of-order packet, to enter a congestion alleviation mode without waiting for a delay period. The network packet transfer may be via TCP protocol, for example. The delay period may comprise a retransmission time-out period if the receiving device does not save isles. If the receiving device does save one or more isles, the delay period may be a period associated with delayed ACK. The signal may comprise a TCP option and/or an available TCP flag. The signal may also comprise, for example, three duplicate ACKs. Other similar signals may be used for networks that use other protocols than TCP. Upon receiving out-of-order data, the receiving device may, for example, send the signal and then assert a signal-sent flag if it is not already asserted. When a new packet is received in order, the signal-sent flag may be de-asserted.

Method and system for a fast drop recovery for a TCP connection

A network interface device includes a bus interface that communicates over a bus with a host processor and memory, and a network interface that sends and receive data packets carrying data over a packet network. A protocol processor conveys the data between the network interface and the memory via the bus interface while performing protocol offload processing on the data packets in accordance with multiple different application flows. The bus interface queues the data for transmission over the bus in a plurality of queues that are respectively assigned to the different application flows, and transmits the data over the bus according to the queues.

Network interface device with flow-oriented bus interface

Certain aspects of a method and system for transparent transmission control protocol (TCP) offload with transmit and receive coupling are disclosed. Aspects of a method may include collecting at least one received TCP segment for a determined network flow via a network interface card (NIC) processor. The state information for the received TCP segment and state information for transmitted TCP segments for the determined network flow may be stored at the NIC without transferring state information for the received TCP segment and the state information for the transmitted TCP segments to a host system communicatively coupled to the NIC. A new TCP segment comprising the collected TCP segments may be generated after a termination event occurs. The generated new TCP segment, new state information for the generated new TCP segment, and the state information for the transmitted TCP segments may be communicated to the host system for TCP offload.

Method and system for transparent TCP offload with transmit and receive coupling

A network interface device includes a bus interface that communicates over a bus with a host processor and memory, and a network interface, including at least first and second physical ports, which are coupled to send and receive data packets carrying data over a packet network. A protocol processor includes a single transmit processing pipeline and a single receive processing pipeline, which are coupled between the bus interface and the network interface so as to convey the data between both of the first and second physical ports of the network interface and the memory via the bus interface while performing protocol offload processing on the data packets.

Multi-port network interface device with shared processing resources

A method for communication includes inputting from a host processor to a network interface device a sequence of work requests indicative of operations to be carried out by the network interface device with respect to a plurality of the connections. The device looks ahead through the sequence in order to identify at least first and second operations that are to be carried out with respect to one of the connections in response to first and second work requests, respectively, wherein the second work request does not immediately follow the first work request in the sequence. The device loads the context data for the one of the connections from a host memory into a context cache, and performs at least the first and second operations sequentially while the context data are held in the cache.

Efficient handling of work requests in a network interface device

Growing community of inventors

Giv′at-Shmuel, Israel

Dov Hirshfeld