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:
Sep. 11, 2012
Filed:
Sep. 24, 2009
Gerald Lampert, Hopkinton, MA (US);
Gerald Lampert, Hopkinton, MA (US);
Juniper Networks, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A network device may include an off-chip memory to store a free-list of buffer pointers. The network device may further include an on-chip controller that includes a prefetch buffer. The prefetch buffer may store unallocated buffer pointers that point to available memory locations in a different off-chip memory. The on-chip controller may receive an unallocated buffer pointer, determine, in response to receiving the unallocated buffer pointer, whether the prefetch buffer is full, store the unallocated buffer pointer in the prefetch buffer when the prefetch buffer is determined not to be full, and store the unallocated buffer pointer in the free-list, in the off-chip memory, when the prefetch buffer is determined to be full.