Patent ID: 8767565

Claim:
A network card configurable in a first mode or a second mode, comprising: a scheduler to schedule packets to be generated, the scheduler providing, for each packet to be generated, a stream identifier and variable data; four 10 GHz transmit engines to generate packets at a data rate of 10 GHz, each transmit engine further comprising: a template memory storing a plurality of packet templates associated with a corresponding plurality of streams, a background engine to select a packet template from the template memory for each packet to be generated in accordance with the respective stream identifier provided by the scheduler, and an overlay fill engine to insert the respective variable data provided by the scheduler into the selected packet template; four 10 GHz receive engines to receive and process packets at a data rate of 10 GHz; and when configured in the first mode, further comprising: four 10 GHz network interface units coupled to respective ones of the four 10 GHz transmit engines and the four 10 GHz receive engines, each 10 GHz network interface unit adapted to transmit packets generated by the respective 10 GHz transmit engine to a network under test and to direct packets received from the network under test to the respective 10 GHz receive engine, wherein the scheduler is configured in the first mode to schedule four independent 10 GHz packet streams to be generated by respective ones of the four 10 GHz transmit engines; when configured in the second mode, further comprising: a coherent multiplexer to combine packets generated by the four 10 GHz transmit engines into test traffic at a 40 GHz data rate, a packet distribution engine to accept packets at a 40 GHz data rate and distribute the accepted packets between the four 10 GHz receive engines, and a 40 GHz network interface unit coupled to the coherent multiplexer and the packet distribution engine, the 40 GHz network interface unit adapted to transmit the test traffic formed by the coherent multiplexer to a network under test and to direct traffic received from the network to the packet distribution engine, wherein the scheduler is configured in the second mode to schedule one 40 GHz packet stream to be generated by the four 10 GHz transmit engines collectively.