Patent ID: 7831749

Claim:
A method for managing data transmission between a host subsystem and a network interface device, comprising the steps of: the network interface device retrieving data buffer descriptors from a DMA descriptor queue in the host subsystem, each of the descriptors identifying a respective data buffer in the host subsystem; transferring data between the network interface device and the data buffers identified by the descriptors retrieved in the step of retrieving; and the network interface device writing a plurality of transfer completion event descriptors into an event queue accessible to the host subsystem, each of the transfer completion event descriptors in the plurality notifying the host subsystem of completion by the network interface device of the transfer of data with at least one of the data buffers in the step of transferring data, and at least one of the transfer completion event descriptors further including within the event descriptor a notification to the host subsystem of a DMA descriptor queue empty condition.