To appear in ACM Computer Communication Review, October 1996.
Gregory Finn, Steve Hotz, Rodney Van Meter
Information Sciences Institute
University of Southern California
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
(310) 822-1511
The proposed zero-scan checksumming scheme eliminates the last
requirement for an additional data copy/scan, beyond the scan required
to transmit or receive from the network channel. If this checksumming
mechanism is combined with zero-copy operating system mechanisms that
provide low-overhead transfer across application and kernel
boundaries, a network interface architecture that provides separate
message buffering is no longer required. A consequence is that the
network interface may be reduced, essentially, to DMA engines plus
link- and physical-layer logic. Taken one step further, the network
interface could be integrated with the CPU to create an "internet
microprocessor". These alternative interface designs are discussed,
along with their requirements and effects upon operating system and
computer system architecture.
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