Abstract: A manufacturing apparatus and method for multiple containment tubing produces continuous, nested tubing, or one tube within another tube, without having to fix the space between the tubes or position them concentrically. Consequently the tubing is very flexible and with uniform wall thickness. Moreover, because the inner surface of the outer tube and the outer surface of the inner tube are ribless, these kinds of features cannot interfere with the bending and twisting and the operation of the tubes comprising the tubing. The space between the tubes, or free space, has sufficient volume to contain a range of contents of the inner tube, as a safety containment device, if the inner tube ruptures, cracks, or otherwise breaks.

Abstract: A manufacturing apparatus and method for multiple containment tubing produces continuous, nested tubing, or one tube within another tube, without having to fix the space between the tubes or position them concentrically. Consequently the tubing is very flexible and with uniform wall thickness. Moreover, because the inner surface of the outer tube and the outer surface of the inner tube are ribless, these kinds of features cannot interfere with the bending and twisting and the operation of the tubes comprising the tubing. The space between the tubes, or free space, has sufficient volume to contain a range of contents of the inner tube, as a safety containment device, if the inner tube ruptures, cracks, or otherwise breaks.

Abstract: A switching architecture for very high data rates which is placed between a port connecting to a fiber optic gigabit ethernet link and a two Gbit/sec backplane of a concentrator. A port connects to the link for both receiving and transmitting data packets from and to the link. A first FTE receives a data packet from the port, and analyzes the data packet to determine if the data packet should be forwarded to the backplane of the concentrator. If the data packet is to be forwarded, the first FTE sends the data packet to a backplane connection for connecting to the backplane of the network concentrator. A second FTE is connected to the backplane connection. The second FTE receives a data packet from the backplane connection, and analyzes the data packet in a manner similar to the first FTE to determine if a packet should be forwarded to the port.

Abstract: A parallel asynchronous elasticity buffer. Selection of the address of a storage element for writing or reading of data is provided by asynchronous input and output pointers implemented using circular gray code counters. The buffer is initialized once during transmission of each frame of data so that the pointers do not select the same storage element for writing and reading at the same time. Write overflow or read underrun of a storage element is detected before any data corruption can occur by comparing the input and output pointers. An error condition is detected if the input and output pointers overlap for a threshold period, which can be shorter than the period required for writing or reading of a multibit data unit to or from the buffer. The overlap time period is determined by comparing the pointers at one or more sampling times corresponding to selected phases of a clock signal.