Hardware/software organization of a high-performance ATM host interface

Author

Traw, C. Brendan S ; Smith, Jonathan M.

Author_Institution

Distributed Syst. Lab., Pennsylvania Univ., Philadelphia, PA, USA

Volume

11

Issue

2

fYear

1993

fDate

2/1/1993 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

240

Lastpage

253

Abstract

A successful hardware/software architecture that resolves performance bottlenecks at the workstation-to-network host interface and offers high end-to-end performance is described. The solution reported carefully splits protocol processing functions into hardware and software implementations. The interface hardware is highly parallel and performs all per-cell functions with dedicated logic to maximize performance. Software provides support for the transfer of data between the interface and application memory, as well as the state management necessary for virtual circuit setup and maintenance. In addition, all higher-level protocol processing is implemented with host software. The prototype connects a RISC System/6000 to a SONET-based asynchronous transfer model (ATM) network carrying data at the OC-3c rate of 155 Mb/s. An experimental evaluation of the interface hardware and software has been performed. Several conclusions are drawn about this host interface architecture and the workstations to which it is connected

Keywords

B-ISDN; SONET; asynchronous transfer mode; network interfaces; network operating systems; reduced instruction set computing; 155 Mbit/s; B-ISDN; RISC System/6000; SONET based ATM network; asynchronous transfer model; end-to-end performance; hardware/software architecture; high-performance ATM host interface; workstation-to-network host interface; Application software; Asynchronous transfer mode; Circuits; Hardware; Logic; Memory management; Protocols; Software architecture; Software maintenance; Software prototyping;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8716

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/49.215019

Filename

215019