Ethernet enhancements

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10404625-B2
Application number	US-201414496667-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 25, 2014
Priority date	Oct 29, 2013
Publication date	Sep 3, 2019
Grant date	Sep 3, 2019

Abstract

This disclosure describes enhancements to Ethernet for use in higher performance applications like Storage, HPC, and Ethernet based fabric interconnects. This disclosure provides various mechanisms for lossless fabric enhancements with error-detection and retransmissions to improve link reliability, frame pre-emption to allow higher priority traffic over lower priority traffic, virtual channel support for deadlock avoidance by enhancing Class of service functionality defined in IEEE 802.1Q, a new header format for efficient forwarding/routing in the fabric interconnect and header CRC for reliable cut-through forwarding in the fabric interconnect. The enhancements described herein, when added to standard and/or proprietary Ethernet protocols, broadens the applicability of Ethernet to newer usage models and fabric interconnects that are currently served by alternate fabric technologies like Infiniband, Fiber Channel and/or other proprietary technologies, etc.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A network controller to communicate with a network node, said network controller comprising:
a transmitter circuit to transmit an Ethernet frame to said node, said Ethernet frame including a header portion comprising a sequence number field for specifying a sequence number of said Ethernet frame;
a receiver circuit to receive a status frame including a field for specifying transmission status of said Ethernet frame and a field for specifying said sequence number of said Ethernet frame, wherein said transmission status to indicate success or failure; and
an error detection and retransmission module to retransmit said Ethernet frame to said node in response to detection of said transmission status as failure;
wherein said sequence number field is a header cycle redundancy check (H-CRC) field that comprises a header cyclic redundancy check, and said sequence number is encoded in said H-CRC field with said header cyclic redundancy check.

2. The network controller of claim 1 , further comprising a retransmission buffer to store said transmitted Ethernet frame until said received status frame indicates transmission status as success.

3. The network controller of claim 1 , wherein said transmitter circuit is further to transmit a request to said node to trigger said node to transmit said status frame.

4. The network controller of claim 1 , wherein said status frame is an Ethernet Media Access Control frame comprising an acknowledgement field to indicate transmission success and a resend field to indicate transmission failure.

5. The network controller of claim 1 , wherein said Ethernet frame further comprises a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) and said transmission status is based on said CRC.

6. A method for enhanced Ethernet communication comprising:
transmitting a first Ethernet frame to a network node, said first Ethernet frame including a header portion comprising a sequence number field for specifying a sequence number of said first Ethernet frame;
receiving a status frame including a field for specifying transmission status of said first Ethernet frame and a field for specifying said sequence number of said first Ethernet frame, wherein said transmission status to indicate success or failure; and
retransmitting said first Ethernet frame to said node in response to detection of said transmission status as failure;
wherein said sequence number field is a header cycle redundancy check (H-CRC) field that comprises a header cyclic redundancy check, and said sequence number is encoded in said H-CRC field with said header cyclic redundancy check.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising transmitting a request to said node to trigger said node to transmit said status frame.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein said status frame is an Ethernet Media Access Control frame comprising an acknowledgement field to indicate transmission success and a resend field to indicate transmission failure.

9. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon which when executed by a processor result in the following operations for enhanced Ethernet communication, comprising:
transmitting a first Ethernet frame to a network node, said first Ethernet frame including a header portion comprising a sequence number field for specifying a sequence number of said first Ethernet frame;
receiving a status frame including a field for specifying transmission status of said first Ethernet frame and a field for specifying said sequence number of said first Ethernet frame, wherein said transmission status to indicate success or failure; and
retransmitting said first Ethernet frame to said node in response to detection of said transmission status as failure;
wherein said sequence number field is a header cycle redundancy check (H-CRC) field that comprises a header cyclic redundancy check, and said sequence number is encoded in said H-CRC field with said header cyclic redundancy check.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , further comprising the operation of transmitting a request to said node to trigger said node to transmit said status frame.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein said status frame is an Ethernet Media Access Control frame comprising an acknowledgement field to indicate transmission success and a resend field to indicate transmission failure.

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Ganga Ilango
• Gravel Alain
• Lovett Thomas
• Perlman Radia
• Regnier Greg
• Vasudevan Anil
• Wilkinson Hugh

Classifications

• H04L12/40163

  by assigning priority to messages according to a message field · CPC title

• H04L49/251

  Cut-through or wormhole routing · CPC title

• H04L1/1621

  Group acknowledgement, i.e. the acknowledgement message defining a range of identifiers, e.g. of sequence numbers · CPC title

• H04L49/552 Primary

  by ensuring the integrity of packets received through redundant connections · CPC title

• H04L49/9057

  Arrangements for supporting packet reassembly or resequencing · CPC title