Patent ID: 7284075

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a first packet for a buffer in memory; generating a descriptor indicating a length of the first packet and a buffer address of the buffer; receiving at least one subsequent packet following the first packet; determining whether the buffer has available space to store the first packet and the at least one subsequent packet received before transferring the first and the at least one subsequent packet to the buffer; generating a descriptor for the at least one subsequent packet indicating the buffer in response to the determining that the buffer has available space; transferring to the buffer the first packet and the at least one subsequent packet capable of fitting into the buffer in response to the determining that the buffer has available space, wherein the descriptors for the first and the at least one subsequent packet indicate the same buffer while the first and the at least one subsequent packet are stored in the buffer; and adding the descriptors of the first packet and the at least one subsequent packet written to the buffer to a descriptor array.