Gigabit Ethernet adapter supporting the iSCSI and IPSEC protocols
First Claim
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1. An integrated network adapter for decoding and encoding network protocols and processing data, comprising:
- a hardwired data path for processing streaming data;
a hardwired data path for receiving and transmitting packets and for encoding and decoding packets;
a plurality of parallel, hardwired protocol state machines;
wherein each protocol state machine is optimized for a specific network protocol; and
wherein said protocol state machines execute in parallel; and
means for scheduling shared resources based on traffic.
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Abstract
The invention is embodied in a gigabit Ethernet adapter. A system according to the invention provides a compact hardware solution to handling high network communication speeds. In addition, the invention adapts to multiple communication protocols via a modular construction and design.
538 Citations
83 Claims
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1. An integrated network adapter for decoding and encoding network protocols and processing data, comprising:
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a hardwired data path for processing streaming data;
a hardwired data path for receiving and transmitting packets and for encoding and decoding packets;
a plurality of parallel, hardwired protocol state machines;
wherein each protocol state machine is optimized for a specific network protocol; and
wherein said protocol state machines execute in parallel; and
means for scheduling shared resources based on traffic.
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2. An integrated network adapter embodied in a single integrated circuit, said network adapter comprising:
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a hardwired transport offload engine (TOE);
a processor integrated with said TOE;
a physical layer module (PHY);
a media-access layer module (MAC);
an IPsec processing engine integrated with said TOE; and
an upper-level protocol (ULP) for offload processing, said ULP integrated with said TOE. - View Dependent Claims (3, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83)
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4. An integrated network adapter, comprising:
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a hardwired data path for receiving and transmitting packets and for encoding and decoding packets;
at least one hardwired protocol state machine; and
at least one communication channel between said network adapter and a host computer. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60)
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Specification