Bridging mechanism for peer-to-peer communication

US8463881B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• Apple Inc. · US

Inventors

• Paul A. Baker · Los Altos, US
• Michael Murphy · Canyon Lake, US
• Eric W. Anderson · Ann Arbor, US
• Colin Whitby-Strevens · Quincy, US
• David Ferguson · Sunnyvale, US
• Keith E. Diefendorff · Los Gatos, US
• Ron Hochsprung · Los Gatos, US
• William P. Cornelius · Los Gatos, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Sep 27, 2008
• Grant date: Jun 11, 2013
• Expiry date: Jan 4, 2030

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F13/4027
• WIPO field: Digital communication
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A high-speed optical interface for connecting computers to external I/O devices allows a number of native I/O formats to be encapsulated into PCIe Vendor Defined Messages (“VDMs”) for transfer over a single physical medium, preferably optical, and is thus referred to as the converged I/O (“CIO”) interface. Standard PCIe bridges are modified to support peer-to-peer communications, allowing greater exploitation of the capabilities of PCIe.