Juniper Networks, Inc.

Intel Corporation

Fred Gruner

Nazar A Zaidi

Ricardo Ramirez

Robert G Hathaway

Abbas Rashid

Mark Bryers

David T Hass

Praveen K Parvathala

Ramesh Panwar

Kushagra V Vaid

Mike Morrison

Ramesh Penwar

A cross-bar switch includes a set of input ports to accept data packets and a set of sink ports in communication with the input ports to forward the data packets. Each sink port includes a communications link interface with a Retry input. When a signal is asserted on the Retry input, the sink port aborts transmission of a data packet and waits a predetermined period of time to retransmit the data packet.

Cross-bar switch incorporating a sink port with retry capability

A cross-bar switch includes a set of input ports for receiving data packets and a set of sink ports for transmitting the received packets to identified targets. A set of data rings couples the input ports to the sink ports. Each sink port utilizes the set of data rings to simultaneously accept multiple data packets targeted to the same destination&#x2014;creating a non-blocking cross-bar switch. Sink ports are also each capable of supporting multiple targets&#x2014;providing the cross-bar switch with implicit multicast capability.

Cross-bar switch having bandwidth allocation

A system and method for aligning an instruction stream is described. The system comprises a rotator logic unit for rotating data bytes of the instruction stream. A shifter logic unit is used for shifting the data bytes to the start of a instruction based upon a length of an immediately prior instruction.

Method and system for a two stage pipelined instruction decode and alignment using previous instruction length

Each sink port in a cross-bar switch provides for allocating bandwidth among data packets. Packets are assigned priority levels, and the cross-bar switch regulates bandwidth allocation for each priority level. A sink port records traffic volume for packet data of each priority level. The sink port calculates a weighted average bandwidth for each different priority level and determines whether to reject packet data for the priority level. When the packet data collected by a sink port exceeds a threshold, the sink port rejects data packets with priority levels having excessive weighted average bandwidths.

Cross-bar switch with bandwidth allocation

Cross-bar switch

A coprocessor transfers data between media access controllers and a set of cache memory without accessing main memory. The coprocessor includes a reception media access controller that receives data from a network and a transmission media access controller that transmits data to a network. A streaming output data transfer engine in the coprocessor transfers data from the reception media access controller to cache memory. A streaming input data transfer engine in the coprocessor transfers data from cache memory to the transmission media access controller. The coprocessor's data transfer engines transfer data between cache memory and the media access controllers in a single data transfer operation&#x2014;eliminating the need to store data in an intermediary memory location between the cache memory and data transfer engines. In one implementation, the coprocessor is employed in a compute engine that performs different network services, including but not limited to: 1) virtual private networking; 2) secure sockets layer processing; 3) web caching; 4) hypertext mark-up language compression; 5) virus checking; 6) firewall support; and 7) web switching.

Transferring data between cache memory and a media access controller

A compute engine includes a central processing unit coupled to a coprocessor. The coprocessor includes a sequencer coupled to a set of application engines for performing operations assigned to the compute engine. The sequencer is coupled to application engines through a set of data, enable, and control interfaces. An arbiter couples the sequencer and application engines to memory. Alternatively, the coprocessor may include multiple sequencers, with each sequencer being coupled to a different set of application engines. One set of application engines includes a media access controller for communicating with a network and a data transfer engine coupling the media access controller to the arbiter. In one implementation, application engines facilitate different network services, including but not limited to: 1) virtual private networking; 2) secure sockets layer processing; 3) web caching; 4) hypertext mark-up language compression; 5) virus checking; 6) firewall support; and 7) web switching.

Compute engine employing a coprocessor

A system includes a plurality of processing clusters and a snoop controller. A first processing cluster in the plurality of processing clusters includes a first tier cache memory coupled to a second tier cache memory. The system employs a store-create operation to obtain sole ownership of a full cache line memory location for the first processing cluster, without retrieving the memory location from other processing clusters. The system issues the store-create operation for the memory location to the first tier cache. The first tier cache forwards a memory request including the store-create operation command to the second tier cache. The second tier cache determines whether the second tier cache has sole ownership of the memory location. If the second tier cache does not have sole ownership of the memory location, ownership of the memory location is relinquished by the other processing clusters with any ownership of the memory location.

Managing ownership of a full cache line using a store-create operation

A system includes a memory, a sequencer, and a set of application engines in communication with the sequencer and memory. The set of application engines includes a streaming input engine for retrieving data from the memory and supplying the data to the set of application engines. In one embodiment, the streaming input engine includes a fetch engine with a memory opcode output and address output for accessing cache memory. The streaming input engine also includes an alignment circuit for buffering and aligning data retrieved from the memory. The alignment circuit includes a data buffer, register, byte selector, and shifter. The data buffer stores data accessed by the fetch engine. The register stores old data from the data buffer's output when the buffer sources new data. The byte selector selects data from the data buffer and the register. The shifter receives data selected by the byte selector and shifts a number of the bytes onto an output for retrieval by an output register coupled to the set of application engines.

Streaming input engine facilitating data transfers between application engines and memory

A set of cache memory includes a set of first tier cache memory and a second tier cache memory. In the set of first tier cache memory each first tier cache memory is coupled to a compute engine in a set of compute engines. The second tier cache memory is coupled to each first tier cache memory in the set of first tier cache memory. The second tier cache memory includes a data ring interface and a snoop ring interface.

Sharing a second tier cache memory in a multi-processor

An apparatus includes a compute engine coupled to a first tier cache memory including a data array. The first tier cache receives memory access requests from the compute engine. A second tier cache memory is coupled to the first tier cache to receive memory access requests for memory locations not owned by the first tier cache. To avoid stale data storage, the first tier cache does not load the data array with data returned by the second tier cache under the following condition&#x2014;the second tier cache returns the data in response to a cacheable load operation from a memory location after the compute engine issues a subsequent store operation to the same memory location.

First tier cache memory preventing stale data storage

A multi-processor includes multiple processing clusters for performing assigned applications. Each cluster includes a set of compute engines, with each compute engine coupled to a set of cache memory. A compute engine includes a central processing unit and a coprocessor with a set of application engines. The central processing unit and coprocessor are coupled to the compute engine's associated cache memory. The sets of cache memory within a cluster are also coupled to one another.

Processing cluster having multiple compute engines and shared tier one caches

A system includes a memory, a sequencer, and a set of application engines in communication with the sequencer and memory. The set of application engines includes a streaming output engine with a storage engine, alignment circuit, and data buffer. The storage engine includes a memory opcode output and memory address output in communication with the memory. The storage engine employs these outputs to access the memory by supplying memory transaction opcodes and memory addresses. The alignment circuit receives data from other application engines in the set of application engines. In operation, the alignment circuit aligns data transfers from an application engine into a data word. The data buffer stores data words from the alignment circuit and transfers them to locations accessed in the memory by the storage engine.

Streaming output engine facilitating data transfers between application engines and memory

A system and method for decoding the length of a macro instruction is described. In one embodiment, the system comprises an opcode-plus-immediate logic unit to generate a first length value, the first length value comprising a length of an opcode plus a length of intermediate data. A memory-length logic unit generates a second length value, the second length value comprising a potential length of a memory displacement, the opcode-plus-immediate logic unit and memory-length logic unit operating in parallel. In addition, the system comprises a length-summation logic unit to sum the first length value and the second length value if the second length value is present.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Fred Gruner