Patent · US Expired

Multi-port high-speed serial fabric interconnect chip in a meshed configuration

US7218640B2 · kind B2 · utility

17Cited by
5References
17Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 30, 2002
Grant dateMay 15, 2007
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 29, 2025

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L47/34
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Multiple boards are connected within a chassis, using a multi-port Target Channel Adapter (TCA). Data is transported from a TCA on a board directly to a TCA on another board through a meshed backplane. The meshed backplane is equipped to mount boards via connectors and may consist of a fabric of copper conductors or optical fibers. Communication from TCA to TCA requires placing ports on each individual TCA along with the appropriate input and output buffering. A multi-port TCA capable of performing multiple bridging functions simultaneously i.e., bridging from a high speed serial meshed backplane to multiple local busses, i.e., Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and TCP/IP devices, is referred to as a Fabric Interconnect Chip (FIC).

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.