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:
May. 05, 1998
Filed:
Sep. 14, 1995
Michael A Sokol, Rancho Cordova, CA (US);
Kevin D Ketchum, Folsom, CA (US);
Level One Communications, Inc., Sacramento, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for implementing a two-port Ethernet bridge using a semaphoring technique. The Ethernet bridge includes two MAC devices, a bus, a memory and a semaphoring scheme. The controllers include a first address which is used for indicating receipt of the packet and a second address which is used for indicating the transmission of the packet from the memory and for clearing of the memory location of the packet for further use. The receiving media access controller receives a data packet on a first port and the transmitting media access controller transmits the packet from the memory to a second port associated with the address of the intended user designated by the packet. The memory includes a dual-ring structure, with one ring used for receive traffic and the other ring used for transmit traffic. The MACs also include programmability for designating the type of packets that may be received. Thus, a particular address on the bus is uniquely designated to carry each message and the address on the bus is independent of the source of the message.