Texas Instruments Corporation

Sean N Batty

Bhajan Singh

Derek Colman

Anthony S Rowell

A data transfer circuit is provided for sending digital data at high rates across short but significant distances within an integrated circuit. The data is sent on parallel conductors that are divided into a number of groups. At the receiving end, a multiplexer selects each of the groups in turn and presents them at a set of conductors that are the same in number as one of the groups. At the transmitting end, a data marshalling circuit takes the bitstream to be transmitted and places it on the conductors in a particular redundant fashion so that the bitstream appears to advance across the set of outputs of the multiplexer. That is particularly useful where those outputs are presented to a pre-emphasis filter and line driver. The apparent data rate can be changed by making two or more of the groups of conductors have identical data.

Data transfer circuit

The present invention is a method of reducing latency in transmitting frames of data in a shared access media environment whereby the preamble of the next frame to be transmitted is transmitted while the data portion of the next frame to be transmitted is being retrieved. In another aspect, the early transmission of the preamble of the next frame is started no later than the time it normally takes to fetch and prepare the next frame for transmission less the time it takes to transmit the preamble.

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Bedfordshire, United Kingdom

Sean N Batty