Fibre channel arbitrated loop bufferless switch circuitry to increase bandwidth without significant increase in cost
DC CAFCFirst Claim
1. A switch for coupling a plurality of Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) nets, comprising:
- a plurality of separate backplane data paths; and
a plurality of port integrated circuits selectably coupled together by said separate backplane data paths, each integrated circuit having integrated thereon a port circuit comprising an FCAL net interface for coupling to one FCAL net and a portion of a crossbar switch coupled to said FCAL net interface, and configured to couple said port to any selectable one of said separate backplane data paths,wherein each of said plurality of port integrated circuits has a priority level for access to busy destination nodes.
6 Assignments
Litigations
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A switch, switched architecture and process for transferring data through an FCAL switch is disclosed. The switch uses multiple switch control circuits each coupled to one FCAL network and all connected to a crossbar switch. The switch control circuits are coupled together by a protocol bus for coordination purposes. Local conversations can occur on each FCAL loop and crossing conversations through the switch can occur concurrently. The OPN primitive is used to establish the connection before any data is transferred thereby eliminating the need for buffer memory in the switch control circuits. The destination address of each OPN is used to address a lookup table in each switch control circuit to determine if the destination node is local. If not, the destination is looked up and a connection request made on the protocol bus. If the remote port is not busy, it sends a reply which causes both ports to establish a data path through the backplane crossbar switch.
-
Citations
6 Claims
-
1. A switch for coupling a plurality of Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) nets, comprising:
-
a plurality of separate backplane data paths; and a plurality of port integrated circuits selectably coupled together by said separate backplane data paths, each integrated circuit having integrated thereon a port circuit comprising an FCAL net interface for coupling to one FCAL net and a portion of a crossbar switch coupled to said FCAL net interface, and configured to couple said port to any selectable one of said separate backplane data paths, wherein each of said plurality of port integrated circuits has a priority level for access to busy destination nodes. - View Dependent Claims (2, 6)
-
-
3. A method for coupling a plurality of Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) nets, comprising:
-
providing a plurality of separate backplane data paths; coupling a plurality of port integrated circuits by said separate backplane data paths, each integrated circuit having integrated thereon a port circuit and a portion of a crossbar switch; and coupling FCAL net interface to at least one FCAL net, and the portion of the crossbar switch, wherein each of said plurality of port integrated circuits has a priority level for access to busy destination nodes. - View Dependent Claims (4)
-
-
5. An apparatus for coupling a plurality of Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) nets, the apparatus comprising:
-
backplane means for providing a plurality of separate backplane data paths; and a plurality of integrated circuit means, selectably coupled together by said backplane means, wherein each integrated circuit means having integrated thereon a port circuit means comprising an interface means for coupling to a FCAL net, and a portion of a crossbar switch means for coupling to said FCAL net interface and for coupling a port to any selectable one of said separate backplane data paths, wherein each of said plurality of port integrated circuits has a priority level for access to busy destination nodes.
-
Specification