Broadcom Corporation

Merav Sicron

Caitlin Bestler

Shay Mizrachi

Rafi Shalom

Eliezer Aloni

Amit Oren

Uri Tal

Dov Hirshfeld

Kobby Carmona

Kan (Frankie) Fan

Uri Elzur

Scott Sterling McDaniel

Steven B Lindsay

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

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 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

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

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Kfar Sava, Israel

Merav Sicron