Abstract: Various electronic devices may benefit from appropriate power conservation techniques and tools. For example, low power techniques may benefit small form-factor pluggable applications. An apparatus can include a packet parsing functionality that includes a first order shallow packet parser configured to operate at line rate and a second order deep packet parser configured to operate only on received filtered packets and received packets destined for a management and/or central processing port. The apparatus can also include a microprocessor configured to manage the apparatus and configured to operate at a low duty cycle. The apparatus can further include a packet generator configured to be active only when generating certain packets of interest. The packet parsing function, the microprocessor, and the packet generator can be configured to provide data from a host port of a small form-factor pluggable device toward an optical port of the small form-factor pluggable device.

Abstract: Various electronic devices may benefit from appropriate power conservation techniques and tools. For example, low power techniques may benefit small form-factor pluggable applications. An apparatus can include a packet parsing functionality that includes a first order shallow packet parser configured to operate at line rate and a second order deep packet parser configured to operate only on received filtered packets and received packets destined for a management and/or central processing port. The apparatus can also include a microprocessor configured to manage the apparatus and configured to operate at a low duty cycle. The apparatus can further include a packet generator configured to be active only when generating certain packets of interest. The packet parsing function, the microprocessor, and the packet generator can be configured to provide data from a host port of a small form-factor pluggable device toward an optical port of the small form-factor pluggable device.

Abstract: A method of providing forward error correction on an Ethernet point-to-point link, constituted of: receiving at one end of the point-to-point link an input data stream, wherein the input data stream is a 10 bit symbol encoded serial data stream at a first data rate; decoding the 10 bit encoded data stream to a 9 bit symbol data stream; increasing the data rate of the 9 bit symbol data stream to a second data rate; for each segment of a predetermined number of 9 bit symbols generating a respective plurality of parity symbols; combining the segments and the generated respective plurality of parity symbols into FEC appended segments; encoding the FEC appended segments into an output 10 bit symbol encoded data stream; and transmitting the output 10 bit encoded stream on the point-to-point link at the second data rate.

Abstract: A method of providing forward error correction on an Ethernet point-to-point link, constituted of: receiving at one end of the point-to-point link an input data stream, wherein the input data stream is a 10 bit symbol encoded serial data stream at a first data rate; decoding the 10 bit encoded data stream to a 9 bit symbol data stream; increasing the data rate of the 9 bit symbol data stream to a second data rate; for each segment of a predetermined number of 9 bit symbols generating a respective plurality of parity symbols; combining the segments and the generated respective plurality of parity symbols into FEC appended segments; encoding the FEC appended segments into an output 10 bit symbol encoded data stream; and transmitting the output 10 bit encoded stream on the point-to-point link at the second data rate.

Abstract: Multicast packets that are received on a port of a network device and forwarded to multiple output ports are stored in memory and respective primary control entries which define them are converted to secondary control entries defining multiple unicast packets before a scheduling algorithm is applied. The packets are reconstituted after the application of the scheduling algorithm has been applied to the control entries. For VPLS packets that are received on a single port and replicated multiple times on one or more output ports, a replication database may be used in conjunction with a replication engine to convert the control entry for a received packet into multiple control entries defining unicast packets for each of the destination ports before the scheduling algorithm is applied. This method is applicable to the replication of packets onto a Virtual Private LAN.

Abstract: Multicast packets that are received on a port of a network device and forwarded to multiple output ports are stored in memory and respective primary control entries which define them are converted to secondary control entries defining multiple unicast packets before a scheduling algorithm is applied. The packets are reconstituted after the application of the scheduling algorithm has been applied to the control entries. For VPLS packets that are received on a single port and replicated multiple times on one or more output ports, a replication database may be used in conjunction with a replication engine to convert the control entry for a received packet into multiple control entries defining unicast packets for each of the destination ports before the scheduling algorithm is applied. This method is applicable to the replication of packets onto a Virtual Private LAN.

Abstract: A method for distributing addressed data packets from an input channel to a multiplicity of packet queues includes receiving said addressed data packets and, responsive to first hashed addresses, distributing the addressed data packets to said queues in accordance with said first hashed addresses. A first hash function is applied to selected address data of each of said addressed data packets to produce said first hashed addresses. At the same time a succession of different hash functions is applied to said selected address data in each of the packets to produce second hashed addresses and occurrences of each of the second hashed addresses are counted so as to obtain for each of said different hash functions a respective one of a plurality of set of counts, each such set representing the distribution of said packets that would occur in said queues if the respective one of the different hash functions had been applied to said addressed data packets.

Abstract: A plurality of serial data streams are transmitted on a corresponding plurality of lines at a common frequency in equal groups of symbols. A framing signal composed of groups of symbols corresponding in number to groups of data symbols is transmitted on an additional control line. Each group of symbols in the framing signal includes a majority of symbols capable of representing a first plurality of code words and a second plurality, substantially less than the first plurality, of valid code words, and a minority of symbols which constitute parity check symbols. Each of the valid code words consists of a first sub-group of similar symbols and a second plurality of similar symbols. For some of the valid code words the symbols in the first sub-group are similar to the symbols in the second sub-group. For other valid code words the symbols in the first sub-group are different from the symbols in the second sub-group.