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:
Feb. 10, 2009
Filed:
Apr. 22, 2003
Sameer Gupta, Round Rock, TX (US);
Michael Samuel Shaffer, Lynnfield, MA (US);
Himanshu Mahendra Thaker, Austin, TX (US);
Sameer Gupta, Round Rock, TX (US);
Michael Samuel Shaffer, Lynnfield, MA (US);
Himanshu Mahendra Thaker, Austin, TX (US);
Agere Systems Inc., Allentown, PA (US);
Abstract
Virtual concatenation circuitry is disclosed which provides stall need detection and an associated stall mechanism in a network element of a data communication network. The virtual concatenation circuitry in a preferred embodiment is operative to provide differential delay compensation for one or more member streams of a virtual concatenation stream. The differential delay compensation involves introducing delay into at least one of the member streams. The stall need detection aspect of the invention relates to detecting a condition under which introduction of the delay is required for alignment of member streams, for example, upon addition of a member stream to the virtual concatenation stream. Such a condition may arise, for example, if a transmission delay of an added stream is larger than that of all other member streams of the virtual concatenation stream. The stall implementation ensures that, during at least a portion of the introduced delay for a given member stream, data transmitted for that member stream is marked as invalid, thereby preventing the introduction of data errors.