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专利名称：System and method for efficient initialization
of a ring network
发明人：Mark Lin申请号：US09/031797申请日：19980227公开号：US06081847A公开日：20000627
摘要：A Fibre Channel network is provided with an efficient implementation of theloop initialization process. In one embodiment, the network comprises nodes coupled byunidirectional serial communications links in a ring topology. The nodes typically include aserial communications transceiver, a transmit controller, a receive controller, and amemory unit. The serial communications transceiver operates to drive transmit signals onthe outgoing serial communications link and to buffer receive signals from the incomingserial communications link. The memory unit includes transmit and receive buffers thatare coupled to the transceiver via transmit and receive controllers. One or more of thenodes may also include a control register having an \"autoswap\" bit. The autoswap bit isinitially reset to 0 when the node enters the initialization mode. When the autoswap bit isset to 1, the transmit and receive buffers exchange roles after every data frame so thatreceived initialization data frames stored in the receive buffer are retransmitted by thetransmitter controller. When the autoswap bit is not set, a comparison between theoriginal transmitted initialization data frame and the received initialization data frame isperformed, and if it is determined that the received initialization data frame is less thanthe original transmitted initialization frame, the autoswap bit is set. Otherwise a check is
made to determine if the two frames are equal, in which case the node determines that ithas received its original transmitted initialization data frame and assumes the role ofLoop Initialization Master. If the received initialization data frame is neither less than orequal to the original frame, then the original initialization data frame is retransmitted,and the cycle is repeated with the next received frame. This implementation
advantageously reduces the retransmission latency of nodes in the loop and therebyreduces the propagation delay of the smallest initialization data frame around the loop,resulting in a smaller loop initialization time.
申请人：LSI LOGIC CORPORATION
代理机构：Conley, Rose & Tayon, PC
代理人：B. Noel Kivlin
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