Asynchronous Transfer Mode Communication Network, System Processing Performance and Memory Usage Enhancement Method

摘要

The ATM communication network of the present invention includes a system processor having a memory coupled to the adapter in a device driver and an interface. Frames stored in memory are transferred to the network using a transfer preparation queue residing in the adapter and defined by a transfer control register. By the descriptor and the pointer, the frames are connected to a receive preparation list maintained by the device driver. The transfer frame completion list is set in the system memory using the transfer control register. Interrupts are generated by the adapter indicating when the frame transfer is complete. At the same time, the cell is received from the network and stored in the system memory according to the pre-buffer list set by the device driver. The adapter maintains a pointer to the next buffer to be used from the receive prebuffer list. The system memory with the location indicated for the adapter via the receive control register in the adapter The receive data cell is reassembled from the free buffer list into a frame in the buffer. Upon completion of the received frame, the frame is added to the appropriate receive preparation list. An interrupt is generated by the adapter to the processor if one or more completed frames reside on the receive ready list for transmission to the network.