Importance

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Abstract

A physical interface card for connection to a data bus associated with a data network node is provided. The physical interface card is adapted to perform without supervision from other data bus connected devices: byte ordering, byte alignment and byte scattering/gathering in conveying data between a data bus connected central memory block and at least one data channel associated with the physical interface card. The functionality is provided via a special function direct memory address device operating in accordance with byte ordering specifications for: data stored in the shared memory block and data conveyed via the at least one data channel. The byte alignment is enabled by direct byte addressing techniques as well as the use of an orphan counter to keep track of processed bytes. An implementation of the orphan counter as a state machine reduces processing overheads. Advantages are derived from performing byte ordering, byte alignment, as well as scattering and gathering of data segments without help from other data bus connected entities.

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First Claim