Abstract: A high-speed out-of-band signalling technique for transferring information such as station status information between stations in a communication network, typically a local-area network, involves sequentially generating a plurality of n-bit sequence segments, where n is at least 3. Each bit is either a first binary value or a second binary value. Each sequence segment is coded with one of a plurality of different n-bit code groups divided into a first code group and a set of second code groups. The n bits in the first code group are all the first binary value--e.g., all "1s". None of the second code groups contain a pair of non-contiguous bits of the second binary value--e.g., none of the second code groups contains two "0s" separated by at least one other bit. The sequence segments are outputted in the order that they were generated to produce a special bit sequence which carries the desired information.

Abstract: A media access controller is provided by the present invention. A feature of the media access controller of the present invention is a content addressable memory architecture whereby address filtering is provided for filtering physical, group and broadcast addresses on an Ethernet network. Another feature of the present invention is an interface architecture capable of supporting external address filters which in turn are capable of supporting spanning tree and source routing algorithms. Still another feature of the present invention is a CRC checker having improved testability such that burdensome computations for input bit test patterns are no longer required. Still another feature of the present invention is a first-in, first-out memory register having validity bits associated with each stored data byte, such that data bytes may be indiscriminately stored, regardless of their validity, and invalid data bytes are discarded during retrieval of the stored data bytes.

Abstract: A media access controller is provided by the present invention. A feature of the media access controller of the present invention is a content addressable memory architecture whereby address filtering is provided for filtering physical, group and broadcast addresses on an Ethernet network. Another feature of the present invention is an interface architecture capable of supporting external address filters which in turn are capable of supporting spanning tree and source routing algorithms. Still another feature of the present invention is a CRC checker having improved testability such that burdensome computations for input bit test patterns are no longer required. Still another feature of the present invention is a first-in, first-out memory register having validity bits associated with each stored data byte, such that data bytes may be indiscriminately stored, regardless of their validity, and invalid data bytes are discarded during retrieval of the stored data bytes.