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:
Oct. 19, 1999
Filed:
Aug. 20, 1997
Kin M Ho, Fremont, CA (US);
David C Banks, Pleasanton, CA (US);
John C Schell, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Tai Quan, San Jose, CA (US);
Teshager Tesfaye, Mountain View, CA (US);
Kenneth A Schmahl, San Jose, CA (US);
Matthew J Tedone, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Drew G Doblar, San Jose, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A method, in a host adapter circuit configured for coupling a host electronic device with one of a fiber channel loop and a point-to-point communication channel, for receiving data at the host adapter circuit from one of the fiber channel loop and the point-to-point communication channel. The method includes providing a selectable control signal configured for indicating whether the host adapter circuit is coupled to the fiber channel loop or the point-to-point communication channel. The method further includes providing a front-end receive circuit. The front-end receive circuit is configured for coupling with an input data port. The input data port represents one of the fiber channel loop and the point-to-point communication channel. The method also includes coupling the front-end receive circuit with the selectable control signal. Additionally, the method includes coupling an output of the front-end receive circuit with a decoder of the host adapter circuit, wherein the front-end receive circuit is configured to process, responsive to the selectable control signal, either fiber channel loop data from the fiber channel loop or point-to-point data from the point-to-point communication channel from the input data port to provide parallel data having a predefined size to the decoder circuit.