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Method and apparatus for multiple channel direct memory access control

  • US 5,875,352 A
  • Filed: 11/03/1995
  • Issued: 02/23/1999
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/03/1995
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A network switch interface comprising:

  • interface circuitry for coupling data among at least one host computer and at least one of a plurality of channels of a network;

    a memory coupled to the interface circuitry for storing a plurality of channel information for the plurality of channels, each channel information utilized to transfer data among the plurality of channels using at least one network switch;

    a cache coupled to the interface circuitry comprising cache entries of recently used channel information;

    a MRU list of the cache comprising a plurality of list entries, each list entry corresponding to a cache entry in the MRU cache;

    a direct memory access (DMA) controller coupled to the interface circuitry for transferring the received data among the plurality of channels in accordance with corresponding channel information, said DMA controller accessing the cache to retrieve the corresponding channel information for the corresponding channel, if the corresponding channel information is not stored in the cache, said DMA controller accessing external memory to retrieve the corresponding channel information and store the corresponding channel information in the cache, said DMA controller further updating the MRU list to identify a current cache entry containing the corresponding channel information as most recently used.

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