Patent ID: 7272156

Claim:
A method of generating an outgoing frame in response to an incoming frame, said method comprising: beginning reception of the incoming frame comprised of components including a physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) preamble and a physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) header, followed by a medium access control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (MPDU): processing the incoming frame at a medium access control (MAC) layer while the incoming frame is being received by providing a TRANSMIT-ENABLE register configured to store a transmit radio enable bit, a transmit preamble enable bit, a transmit header enable bit, a transmit medium access control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (MPDU) enable bit, and an optional transmit Message Integrity Check (MIC) enable bit, wherein the transmit radio enable bit indicates that a transmit is being initiated, the transmit preamble enable bit indicates a transmission of the preamble should begin subsequent to expiration of a short interframe spacing (SIFS) timer, the transmit header enable bit indicates that all values required to properly format the physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) header have been loaded into the transmit registers, the transmit MPDU enable bit indicates that remaining transmit values have been loaded into the transmit registers including a pointer to the MPDU data to be transmitted, and the optional transmit Message Integrity Check (MIC) enable bit indicates that a valid Message Integrity Check value is available in memory; initiating transmission of some outgoing frame components before determination of all parameters associated with all components of the outgoing frame has been concluded including initiating preamble transmission associated with the outgoing frame subsequent to a short interframe spacing (SIFS) time associated with the incoming frame upon a determination that a frame response to the frame is required: determining some component parameters associated with the outgoing frame while other components of the outgoing frame are being transmitted.