The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 07, 1995
Filed:
Jun. 24, 1993
David C Brief, Palo Alto, CA (US);
National Semiconductor Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods and circuits for testing the hybrid capabilities of a station before the station is connected into an FDDI-II hybrid ring. One embodiment tests hybrid mode operation of an FDDI-II non-monitor station by creating a loopback ring, generating cycles for isochronous transmission on the loopback ring, and measuring the progress of the cycles around the loopback ring. The loopback ring created may be internal to a single integrated circuit, internal to a single slave station, or limited to a pair of stations, such as a concentrator and a single attachment station. Another embodiment provides a circuit for use in station on an FDDI-II ring. The circuit includes a loopback circuit which may be configured to create a hybrid ring and a cycle generator for generating cycles on the hybrid ring. The cycle generator includes a small latency adjustment buffer (LAB) and a limited isochronous media access control unit (IMAC) which are incapable of cycle master operation but are sufficient to provide test cycles.