US 2002/0159552 A1 · Method and system for plesiosynchronous communications with null insertion and removal

Abstract

A serial communications architecture for communicating between hosts and data store devices. The Storage Link architecture is specially adapted to support communications between multiple hosts and storage devices via a switching network, such as a storage area network. The Storage Link architecture specifies various communications techniques that can be combined to reduce the overall cost and increase the overall performance of communications. The Storage Link architecture may provide packet ordering based on packet type, dynamic segmentation of packets, asymmetric packet ordering, packet nesting, variable-sized packet headers, and use of out-of-band symbols to transmit control information as described below in more detail. The Storage Link architecture may also specify encoding techniques to optimize transitions and to ensure DC-balance.

Claims36

Dependent claims

A method in a receiving device for compensating for differences in clock frequencies between a transmitting device and the receiving device, the method comprising:

receiving a stream of symbols transmitted serially from the transmitting device;
identifying variable length groups of bits from the received stream along with an indication of whether the number of bits in the group represents an overrun or an underrun of bits;
tracking whether an overrun or underrun criterion is satisfied based on the identified variable length groups of bits;
and
upon detection of an out-of-band symbol,
removing the out-of-band symbol from the stream of symbols when the overrun criterion is satisfied;
and
inserting an additional out-of-band symbol into the stream when the underrun criterion is satisfied.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and system for plesiosynchronous communications with null insertion and removal

Life of this patent

Method and system for plesiosynchronous communications with null insertion and removal

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims36