The application provides a network device, which includes: a main control board and a service board, where the main control board includes a processor and a switching chip, and the service board includes a physical layer component. The switching chip is connected to the physical layer component by using a system bus. The system bus consists of a SerDes link, and is configured to transmit service data and control information of a port of the physical layer component. The processor controls the port of the physical layer component by using the control information of the port of the physical layer component. The network device transmits the service data and the control information by using the system bus, so that the service board does not need to set a CPU processing the control information, thereby expanding an interface flexibly, and reducing device complexity and hardware costs.

A switch according to the present invention can have a number of ports in an ASIC greater than the ASIC clock speed divided by the network protocol rate. The switch ASIC contains multiple blocks, each block having a number of ports equal to the ASIC clock speed divided the packet rate of the protocol. Each block has a number of queues equal to the total number of ports on the ASIC to receive packets. The queues are scheduled from each block into a number of outputs equal to the number of blocks. The outputs of each block are received by a scheduler which evaluates the packets available at the outputs of each block to determine the combination of outputs which provides the most connections that are ready for transmission. The combination with the most connections is then utilized to provide packets to the egress section of each block.

Technologies for high-speed data transmission including a network port logic having a communication lane coupled to a physical medium dependent/physical medium attachment (PMD/PMA) sublayer, a physical coding sublayer (PCS), and a media access control (MAC) sublayer. The communication lane receives serial binary data at a line speed such as 25 gigabits per second. The PMD/PMA converts the serial binary data into parallel data, and the PCS decodes that parallel data using a line code also used for a slower line speed such as 10 gigabits per second. The network port logic may include four independent communication lanes, with each communication lane coupled to a dedicated PMD/PMA, PCS, and MAC. The network port logic may also include a multi-lane PCS and multi-lane MAC to receive and transmit data striped over the four communication lanes. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

In one embodiment an approach is provided to efficiently program routes on line cards and fabric modules in a modular router to avoid hot spots and thus avoid undesirable packet loss. Each fabric module includes two separate processors or application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). In another embodiment, each fabric module processor is replaced by a pair of fabric module processors arranged in series with each other, and each processor is responsible for routing only, e.g., IPv4 or IPv6 traffic. The pair of fabric module processors communicates with one another via a trunk line and any packet received at either one of the pair is passed to the other of the pair before being passed back to a line card.

A data processing system, method and device. A device can include a plurality of data cards having host interface connectors initially configured to transmit signals according to a first communication protocol and data card connectors that communicate with external devices using a different communication protocol. The data cards are converted so that the host interface connectors also transmit signals using the second communication protocol. The plurality of data cards are interconnected so that signals can be routed through the data cards to provide desired data processing functions. A cross-point switch fabric allows the signals to be routed to the appropriate data card or cards. Multiple devices can be interconnected to provide a distributed data processing grid providing access to the data processing functions for external devices that do not communicate using the first communication protocol.

A method for sending a code block data stream includes adding m first data frames carrying the code block data stream to n physical layer data frames on an Ethernet physical interface. The method includes identifying a location of the first code block of each first data frame in the m first data frames using an alignment marker of a physical layer data frame in the n physical layer data frames. The method includes sending the n physical layer data frames, where m and n are integers greater than or equal to 1.

Rapid channel failure detection and recovery in wireless communication networks is needed in order to meet, among other things, carrier class Ethernet channel standards. Thus, resilient wireless packet communications is provided using a physical layer link aggregation protocol with a hardware-assisted rapid channel failure detection algorithm and load balancing, preferably in combination. This functionality may be implemented in a Gigabit Ethernet data access card with an engine configured accordingly. In networks with various topologies, these features may be provided in combination with their existing protocols.

Link speed negotiation for 64 Gbps is done at 32 Gbps to allow only two speeds to be used during link state negotiation. The desire for 64 Gbps operation is indicated in a field shared during link state negotiation. After link speed negotiation is completed at 32 Gbps, a determination is made whether 32 or 64 Gbps operation is desired. If 32 Gbps operation is desired, procedures continue as in the prior operations. If 64 Gbps operation is desired, a new procedure is performed. The new procedure provides time for the optical transceiver to changeover from the PAM2 (pulse amplitude modulation) or binary operation used in 32 Gbps operation to the PAM4 multi-level operation used in 64 Gbps operation. After determining that the optical transceiver is ready to transmit, transmitter training is performed, with increased handshaking to provide improved granularity. After transmitter training is complete, conventional link initialization is performed.

This disclosure describes techniques and apparatuses enabling low-to-high speed cut-through communication without creating an overrun condition. By so doing, the techniques and/or apparatuses enable communication interfaces to communicate at higher speed, such as by avoiding store-to-forward latency.

A switch board that includes a port configuring unit and a plurality of ports, where the port configuring unit is configured to divide the switch board into more than one virtual sub-switch-board, allocate the ports to the virtual sub-switch-boards, and configure each port of each virtual sub-switch-board to a first-type port or a second-type port, where the first-type port and the second-type port have different bandwidth; and each of the ports is configured to connect a server blade according to a configuration on the port configuring unit. The technical solutions of the present disclosure can meet a requirement for flexible port bandwidth configuration.