Patent ID: 6772218
Filing Date: 2004-08-03
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
Apparatus comprising:a computer system having a central processing unit, server memory, and an option bus; and a network processor option card operatively connected to said computer system through said option bus, said option card having mounted thereon: a plurality of interface processors for processing data frames; a dispatcher for assigning data frames to idle ones of the interface processors; instruction memory storing instructions accessibly to said interface processors; data memory storing data passing through said option card from said server memory accessibly to said interface processors; an arbiter for assigning memory to respective interface processors; and a plurality of input/output ports; one of said input/output ports exchanging data passing through said option card with an external network under the direction of said interface processors; said option card cooperating with said network server computer system in directing the exchange of data between said data exchange input/output ports and the flow of data through said data memory to and from said server memory in response to execution by said interface processors of instructions loaded into said instruction memory.