Link layer communication by multiple link layer encodings for computer buses
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorDebendra Das Sharma
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a transmitter to send a first plurality of flits to a second device coupled to the apparatus via a link; and a control circuit coupled to the transmitter to change a configuration of the link from a flit-based encoding to a packet-based encoding. In response to the configuration change, the transmitter is to send a first plurality of packets to the second device via the link. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Claims20
An apparatus comprising:
- a transmitter to send a first plurality of flits to a second device coupled to the apparatus via a link;
- and
- a control circuit coupled to the transmitter to change a configuration of the link from a flit-based encoding to a packet-based encoding, wherein in response to the configuration change, the transmitter is to send a first plurality of packets to the second device via the link.
A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which if performed by a machine cause the machine to perform a method comprising:
- communicating, from a first device to a second device via a link, a first plurality of flits;
- changing a configuration of the link from a flit-based encoding to a packet-based encoding;
- and
- communicating, from the first device to the second device via the link, a first plurality of packets.
A system comprising:
- a first device having:
- a transmitter to send a first plurality of packets to a second device, each of the first plurality of packets having a packet sequence number;
- and
- a control circuit coupled to the transmitter to cause the transmitter to change from encoding according to a packet-based encoding to a flit-based encoding, wherein in response to the encoding change, the transmitter is to send a first data link layer packet to the second device to indicate a sequence number of a first flit to be sent to the second device with the flit-based encoding;
- a link coupled between the first device and the second device;
- and
- the second device coupled to the first device via the link.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.