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:
Apr. 02, 2002
Filed:
Apr. 29, 1998
Van Hunter, San Jose, CA (US);
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, CA;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for a media access controller supporting redundant links are provided. According to one aspect of the present invention a media access controller includes a two transceivers for communication with an source and/or destination port. Each transceiver has a receiver and transmitter. When the media access controller sets up a physical link to the desired source and/or destination port each transceiver sets up a separate physical link to the source and/or destination port. One of the physical links is the primary physical link and the other is a redundant or backup physical link. By using two physical links if a failure of interrupt occurs on the primary physical link then a switch-over is performed to use the redundant physical link.