Managing timing of a protocol stack

• US 20100014541A1
• Filed: 07/15/2008
• Published: 01/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Harriman, David J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,218,580 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/458
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/28 Timers or timing mechanisms used in protocols

Abstract

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for receiving a communication in a protocol stack coupled to a tunneling interconnect, determining whether a communication type is subject to altered timing to accommodate a delay associated with the tunneling interconnect, adjusting a timing of at least one stack logic to accommodate the delay, and handling the communication using the adjusted timing. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a first protocol stack to handle data according to a first protocol, the first protocol stack including an interface logic to interface the first protocol stack to a tunneling interconnect; and

the tunneling interconnect to couple the first protocol stack to a link and having a timing delay associated therewith, wherein the interface logic is to control at least one timer of the first protocol stack based at least in part on the timing delay.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interface logic is to map timing delay information associated with the timing delay to a timing requirement of at least one stack logic of the first protocol stack.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the interface logic is to determine whether to alter a timing view of the first protocol stack based at least in part on the mapping.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the interface logic is to dynamically map the timing delay information to the timing requirement, wherein the first protocol stack can be dynamically bound to the tunneling interconnect or to a second physical layer.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interface logic is to disable a first clock of the first protocol stack for a predetermined time, the first clock to provide a first clock signal to a first stack logic, such that the first stack logic meets a link timing requirement of the first protocol.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the tunneling interconnect is to tunnel packets of the first protocol to the link via a protocol of the tunneling interconnect.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the link is a converged interconnect to be shared by the first protocol stack and a second protocol stack, wherein the first protocol stack is a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express™

(PCIe) stack.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the tunneling interconnect is to allocate first and second slots to the first protocol stack and a third slot to the second protocol stack.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising a receiver coupled to the link to receive the tunneled packets, wherein the receiver is to account for the allocated first and second slots via an interface logic coupled to the link.

10. A method comprising:

receiving a communication in an interface logic of a first protocol stack coupled to a tunneling interconnect;

determining whether a communication type of the communication is subject to altered timing to accommodate a delay associated with the tunneling interconnect;

adjusting a timing of at least one stack logic of the first protocol stack to accommodate the delay; and

handling the communication in the first protocol stack using the adjusted timing.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising accessing a table based on the communication type to obtain timing delay information for the tunneling interconnect associated with the communication type.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the table is stored in non-volatile memory, and includes a first portion including mappings between the tunneling interconnect and the first protocol stack and a second portion including mappings between the tunneling interconnect and a second protocol stack coupled to the tunneling interconnect.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising sharing the tunneling interconnect between the first protocol stack and the second protocol stack, and providing a slot of the first protocol stack to the second protocol stack if the first protocol stack does not have information to communicate during the slot.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the timing of the at least one stack logic is adjusted by turning off a clock coupled to the at least one stack logic.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising delaying a clock for a second stack logic based at least in part on the delay.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising delaying the clock to prevent an error signal to indicate non-receipt of an acknowledgement from a receiver until after a predetermined time.

17. A system comprising:

a transmitter including a physical layer coupled to a link and a protocol stack coupled to the physical layer;

a receiver coupled to the transmitter via the link and including a first protocol stack to handle data according to a first protocol, the first protocol stack including a first interface logic to interface the first protocol stack to the link via a tunneling physical layer having a timing delay associated therewith, wherein the first interface logic is to alter timing of at least one first stack logic of the first protocol stack based at least in part on the timing delay; and

a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) coupled to the receiver.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the receiver further includes a second protocol stack to handle data according to a second protocol, wherein the second protocol stack includes a second interface logic to alter timing of at least one second stack logic of the second protocol stack based at least in part on the timing delay.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the tunneling physical layer includes a controller to select the first protocol stack or the second protocol stack to receive packets received from the transmitter.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the first interface logic is to determine whether a communication type of a packet received from the transmitter via the tunneling physical layer is subject to altered timing based at least in part on accessing of a table to obtain timing delay information for the tunneling physical layer associated with the communication type.