Patent ID: 7508846

Claim:
A method of simultaneously transmitting, in parallel, data symbols common to a single packet across a plurality of separate physical lanes supported by a composite medium and collectively forming a link between a transmitter and a receiver, the packet having a packet size, the method comprising: segmenting the packet into a plurality of variable sized transfer units subject to the constraint that each transfer unit has a respective size between a minimum transfer unit size and a maximum transfer unit size and subject to the constraint that the fewest possible number of transfer units are used, the step of segmenting comprising: i) setting values TU_min and TU_max, the value TU_min being the minimum size of a transfer unit and the value TU_max being the maximum size of a transfer unit; ii) setting a nominal transfer unit size, TU_base_size, depending upon a condition of the composite medium; iii) calculating a minimum number of transfer units by dividing the packet size by the nominal transfer unit size; iv) calculating a remaining number of data symbols for the packet that do not fit into the minimum number of transfer units calculated in step iii); v) if the remaining number of data symbols is greater than zero distributing the remaining data symbols amongst the minimum number of transfer units calculated in step iii) if there is room to do so without increasing any transfer unit beyond TU_max; vi) if the remaining number of data symbols is greater than zero and there is not room to distribute the remaining data symbols amongst the minimum number of transfer units calculated in step iii), defining at least one additional transfer unit above the minimum number of transfer units calculated in step iii) and distributing the entire packet over the minimum number of transfer units and the additional transfer units such that each transfer unit is approximately the same size, at least as large as TU_min, and no larger than TU_max; vii) adding a unique sequence number to each of the transfer units into which the packet has been segmented; and transmitting the plurality of variable sized transfer units from the transmitter to the receiver such that at least some of the data symbols common to the single packet are transmitted simultaneously from the transmitter to the receiver in parallel over at least some of the plurality of separate lanes of the composite medium interconnecting the transmitter and receiver and forming the link between the transmitter and receiver.