Abstract: A fiber channel interface controller incorporating a cost-efficient hardware implementation of the fiber channel arbitrated loop initialization protocol. Cost efficiency is achieved by determining the minimal buffer size required for storing information extracted from fiber channel arbitrated loop initialization frames and including in the fiber channel interface controller a memory buffer having this calculated minimum size. The inherent buffering capacity within all FC ports of the arbitrated loop and the ability to generate, on the fly, large portions of fiber channel arbitrated loop initialization frames, rather than storing and forwarding entire fiber channel arbitrated loop initialization frames, both combine to decrease the memory buffer size requirements for the fiber channel interface controller and to decrease the time required to carry out fiber channel arbitrated loop initialization.