National Semiconductor Corporation

Louise Y Yeung

Ronald S Perloff

James R Hamstra

Gabriel M Li

A network station's elasticity buffer includes a memory core together with write and read pointer logic. The memory core includes a START area and a CONTINUATION area which is a cyclic buffer. Under normal conditions, the read pointer follows the write pointer cyclically in the CONTINUATION area. However, upon detection of a start delimiter or upon station reset, the pointers recenter to the START area. Separate synchronizing logic is provided for each of the two recentering modes to reduce metastability problems caused by asynchronous sampling of data. A delay-by-one mechanism is built into the start delimiter mode synchronization scheme so that, under certain conditions, the read pointer is held in the CONTINUATION area for an additional read so an early sample of the read-start signal by the station's local clock while the read pointer is well behind the write pointer will not drop the last character of the previous frame when that frame is not separated from the next start delimiter by a sufficient interframe gap. A look-ahead-look-current detector insures that the there is not too much initial separation between the write pointer and the read pointer. A delay-GO mechanism is built into the reset mode synchronization scheme to prevent irregular dropping of line state characters when the local byte clock is trapped within the metastability window while clock drift is infinitesimal. The read pointer logic also includes a mechanism for preventing the delay-GO mechanism from creating too much initial separation between the write pointer and the read pointer.

Byte-wide elasticity buffer

Apparatus and methods for encoding information characters received by a station from a transmission medium to generate internal code points for retrieval or retransmission by the station. The encoding provides an internal symbol set that is able to pass complete line state information via its internal code points, thereby eliminating the need for extra signals to indicate the current line state. The code points can also report error situations, such as elasticity buffer errors, and can be accepted by the station's transmitter to be encoded and, after appropriate filtering, repeated onto the transmission medium. The internal code points are optimized so that the code point set minimizes the decoding logic at the receiving end, be it the station's Media Access Control function or its transmitter. Furthermore, internally, the station may make use of the internal code points to synchronize the receiver elasticity buffer.

Code points for transferring data from a network transmission medium to

A method and apparatus for synchronizing the cascaded, multi-channel transmission of a plurality of data characters is provided. Each sequence of data characters preceded by a start delimiter. Each transmission channel provides transmitted data frames to an associated elasticity buffer. As each channel detects a start delimiter, it asserts a begin-request signal that acknowledges detection of the start delimiter. When all channels have detected a start delimiter, a read-start signal is asserted to simultaneously advance the read pointer of each elasticity buffer. In this manner, each elasticity buffer initiates a sunchronized read for local use or retransmission of the multi-channel data.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Louise Y Yeung