System interface abstraction layer
AssigneeMindspeed Technologies, Inc.
InventorDavid C. Boike
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A communications card provides a miniport driver including a system interface abstraction layer (SIAL) that eliminates operating system (OS) specific and platform specific semantics from communication paths between a driver and the rest of the communications system. The SIAL provides a layer of software that connects an unspecified number of messaging channels to a single interface. The SIAL provides a message controller that is responsible for routing messages between various internal and external entities and contains multiple installable components, an operating system component which provides OS functions for the installable components and a platform module that supplies platform specific functions to the installable components.
Claims19
A communications driver on a communications card comprising:
- a network driver interface;
- and
- a miniport driver coupled to the network driver interface, the miniport driver comprising:
- a system interface abstraction layer (SIAL) comprising:
- an operating system (OS) interface to process a plurality of messages for a plurality of internal driver entities;
- and
- a message controller coupled to the OS interface to transfer the plurality of messages.
A communications card, the communications card comprising:
- a communications system driver comprising:
- a network driver interface;
- a miniport driver coupled to the network driver interface;
- and
- a system interface abstraction layer (SIAL) coupled to the network driver interface and the miniport driver, the SIAL comprising:
- an operating system (OS) interface for processing a plurality of messages to and from a plurality of entities internal to the OS;
- and
- a message controller coupled to the OS interface for translating the messages and routing the message to and from an entity external to the OS.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.