3com Corporation

Chipcom Corporation

Samuel Ben-Meir

Yuval Shohet

Brian Ramelson

David E Bartolini

Yoseph Linde

Gordon C Saussy

John L Cook, Iii

Menachem Abraham

Ilan Carmi

Yongbum Kim

Steven E Horowitz

Alex Herman

Ira Hart

Igor Zhovnirovski

Richard Rehberg

Dan Ater

A power switching and voltage regulation system utilizing a conventional switching element to provide distributed power switching and voltage regulation. The system utilizes a switching element to impose an impedance in a controlled manner to provide power to a load such as a plug-in module in an electronic apparatus. The power source supplying an input DC voltage is intentionally set to a higher voltage than the level required by the plug-in module. The voltage supplied is required to be sufficiently high such that the voltage delivered to the plug-in module, exceeds the maximum permitted voltage level of the voltage required by the particular plug-in module. Once the switching device is turned on, the switching element exerts an impedance which functions to drop the voltage supplied to the load to the required value. The impedance is generated in accordance with a feedback control signal. The drop in voltage is achieved in accordance with a reference signal input to a comparison circuit such as an operational amplifier. A first embodiment discloses a system wherein a plurality of DC output voltages are generated in which all the output voltage levels are the same. A second embodiment discloses a system wherein a plurality of DC output voltages are generated whereby the level of each output voltage is independent of the others.

Voltage regulation and power switching system

A local net area network, or LAN, configuration is provided with a multiple generic LAN channel architecture which can be logically and dynamically changed. The configuration control can be applied to each module of the network and to each port of a module of a LAN hub. The architecture provides multiple LAN protocols to be used simultaneously, as needed, through protocol specific functions. Industry standard protocol such as: token bus, token ring, and fiber distributed data interface (FDDI), can be implemented using the generic channel architecture and its characteristics providing respective network functions. The architecture also provides a digital collision detection method and provides information necessary for precise network statistics monitoring. The token passing ring architecture provides a logical ring formation within the generic channel. A token passing bus architecture uses modified Ethernet.TM. architecture, and a hub management provides control for the generic multichannel and the LAN management provides protocol dependent network management. The architecture provided allows multiple hub management entities via hub mastership arbitration to provide a unique master for the hub management function.

Generic backplane system which is configurable to serve different

Communication system concentrator configurable to different access

Growing community of inventors

Sharon, MA, United States of America

Samuel Ben-Meir