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. 12, 1998
Filed:
Oct. 30, 1995
Randy B Osborne, Newton, MA (US);
John H Howard, Cambridge, MA (US);
Ross T Casley, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Douglas J Hahn, El Cerrito, CA (US);
Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, Inc., Cambridge, MA (US);
Abstract
A packet based data transmission system includes a flexible optimized nonocking transmit interface that incorporates optimized buffer modes, dynamic and static chaining, streaming and the utilization of small packet formats. Static chaining refers to connecting together the linked list for successive packets for the same transmit channel or virtual channel. Dynamic chaining refers to means by which the network interface performs this chaining automatically, thereby solving a blocking problem. On the transmit side, streaming refers to initiating the transmission of packet data before the entire packet data has been presented to the interface. This, in turn, permits more rapid recycling of the buffer space. On the receive side, streaming refers to initiating the processing of packet data before the entire packet has been received. The packet transmission system also includes a receive interface that incorporates a chunking system in which a buffer is divided into multiple chunks or segments to accommodate different size packets. Additionally, the receive interface includes an optimized linked list scheme to support chunking in which no linking element is required for the first buffer in the linked list. In one embodiment a small packet format is provided to reduce the relative overhead in sending small packets. In another embodiment the optimized buffer mode associated with the receive side can be utilized on the transmit interface for further reducing overhead.