Flow control credit updates for virtual channels in the advanced switching (as) architecture
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorAric Griggs
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Devices in an Advanced Switching (AS) fabric may include state machines for controlling the generation and transmission of flow control (FC) update data link layer packets (DLLPs) between link partners. A link partner may use the state machine to generate flow control update DLLPs for all available virtual channels (VCs) and transmit the FC update DLLPs contiguously to prevent any given VC from failing to perform an FC update refresh within an FC update timeout period due to injection of large packets (e.g., AS transaction layer packets (TLPs)) between the FC Update DLLPs.
Claims27
A method comprising:
- in response to a flow control (FC) credit update event in a device having a link partner in a switching fabric, generating an FC credit update packet for each of a plurality of active virtual channels (VCs);
- and
- transmitting the FC credit update packets contiguously to the link partner.
An apparatus comprising:
- a flow control (FC) credit update timer to generate FC credit update events;
- and
- an FC credit update module to generate an FC credit update packet for each of a plurality of active virtual channels (VCs) and transmit the plurality of FC credit update packets contiguously to a link partner in a switching fabric in response to receiving an FC credit update event.
An article comprising a machine-readable medium including machine-executable instructions to cause a machine to:
- generate an FC credit update packet for each of a plurality of active virtual channels (VCs) in response to a flow control (FC) credit update event in a device having a link partner in a switching fabric;
- and
- transmit the FC credit update packets contiguously to the link partner.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.