Host-fabric adapter having bandwidth-optimizing, area-minimal, vertical sliced memory architecture and method of connecting a host system to a channel-based switched fabric in a data network
First Claim
1. A host-fabric adapter, comprising:
- at least one Micro-Engine (ME) arranged to establish connections and support data transfers, via a switched fabric, in response to work requests from a host system for data transfers;
a context memory interface arranged to provide context information necessary for data transfers; and
a doorbell manager arranged to update the context information needed for said Micro-Engine (ME) to process said work requests for data transfers, via said switched fabric.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A host system is provided with one or more host-fabric adapters installed therein for connecting to a switched fabric of a data network. The host-fabric adapter may comprise at least one Micro-Engine (ME) arranged to establish connections and support data transfers via a switched fabric; a serial interface arranged to receive and transmit data packets from the switched fabric for data transfers; a host interface arranged to receive and transmit host data transfer requests, in the form of descriptors, from the host system for data transfers; a context memory having a bandwidth-optimized, area minimal vertically sliced memory architecture arranged to provide context information necessary for data transfers; and a doorbell manager arranged to update the context information needed for the Micro-Engine (ME) to process host data transfer requests for data transfers.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A host-fabric adapter, comprising:
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at least one Micro-Engine (ME) arranged to establish connections and support data transfers, via a switched fabric, in response to work requests from a host system for data transfers;
a context memory interface arranged to provide context information necessary for data transfers; and
a doorbell manager arranged to update the context information needed for said Micro-Engine (ME) to process said work requests for data transfers, via said switched fabric. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A host-fabric adapter installed at a host system for connecting to a switched fabric of a data network, comprising:
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at least one Micro-Engine (ME) arranged to establish connections and support data transfers via said switched fabric;
a serial interface arranged to receive and transmit data packets from said switched fabric for data transfers;
a host interface arranged to receive and transmit host data transfer requests, in the form of descriptors, from said host system for data transfers;
a context memory having a bandwidth-optimized, area-minimal vertically sliced memory architecture arranged to store context information needed for said Micro-Engine (ME) to process host data transfer requests for data transfers; and
a doorbell manager arranged to update the context information needed for said Micro-Engine (ME) to process host data transfer requests for data transfers. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20)
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17. A method of designing a context memory having a bandwidth-optimized, area-minimal vertically sliced memory architecture, comprising:
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determining a register width requirement and a system architecture requirement of registers of different sizes designated for said context memory;
selecting a number of vertically arranged memory slices of registers of different sizes based on the register width requirement and the system architecture requirement such that each memory slice has a number of registers provided by said system architecture and is arranged to supply respective bits of data, via a system bus of said register width requirement;
determining the depth of each of said memory slices based on the respective number of registers provided by said system architecture; and
establishing a default location that is initialized to zero (“
0”
) in all subsequent memory slices which serves as a padding value when a memory location of a respective memory slice exceeding a register width of said memory slice is accessed, via said system bus.
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Specification