Structure for non-blocking serial attached SCSI infrastructure utilizing virtual pathways

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9436636-B2
Application number	US-201213710133-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 10, 2012
Priority date	Dec 10, 2012
Publication date	Sep 6, 2016
Grant date	Sep 6, 2016

Abstract

Structure is disclosed for a non-blocking SAS architecture utilizing virtual connections between SAS devices. One embodiment comprises a SAS expander. The SAS expander comprises a plurality of physical links (PHYs) and a Virtual Connection Manager (VCM) coupled with the plurality of PHYs. The VCM exchanges information over a plurality of concurrently established virtual pathways between a first PHY of the plurality of PHYs and a second PHY of the plurality of PHYs.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expander comprising:
a first physical Link (PHY);
a second PHY; and
a Virtual Connection Manager (VCM) adapted to exchange information over a plurality of concurrently established full-duplex virtual pathways directly between the first PHY and the second PHY.

2. The SAS expander of claim 1 wherein:
the information comprises one or more virtual SAS cells, wherein each of the one or more virtual SAS cel…

Assignees

• Lsi Corp
• Avago Technologies General Ip

Inventors

• Voorhees William W
• Dravida Srikiran
• Hoglund Timothy E
• Petty William K

Classifications

• G06F3/0683

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/0635

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F13/4022 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/061

  Physics · mapped topic