Patent ID: 7539142

Claim:
A method of interfacing a data stream, transported from a data source over a first communication link at a first data rate, with a second communication link at a second data rate, less than said first data rate, comprising the steps of: (a) controllably writing said data stream as received from said first communication link into a data store having a first data storage capacity; (b) controllably reading said data stream out of said data store for transport over said second communication link at said second data rate; (c) in response to the amount of data in said data store being greater than a first prescribed fraction of the data storage capacity of said data store, causing said data source to interrupt transmission of said data stream over said first communication link and to store further data of said data stream in an associated storage buffer having a second data storage capacity greater than said first data storage capacity; and wherein the data store has a buffer size operative with the data source to accommodate the time required to complete clocking out of a stored maximum length packet of a clock rate of the second communication link; the completion of a transmission in progress of a maximum length packet by the first communication link before a pause packet is transmitted; and completion of a transmission in progress of a packet from the first communication link to the storage in the second communication link.