Hub management bus architecture for repeater interface controller

摘要

The present invention is directed to various features of a repeater interface controller (RIC) that connects segments of a bus/tree local area network. In the described embodiment of the invention, the RIC implements the IEEE 802.3 repeater specification. In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, the RIC provides hub management support in the form of information regarding the status of its ports and of the packets it is repeating. This data is available in three forms: counted events, recorded events and status packets. This information is available through the RIC's interface. The counters and event recording registers have user-definable masks which enable them to be configured to count and record a variety of events. In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, the RIC management statistics at maximum network bandwidth. Statistics are logged while a packet repetition is in process and are furnished to counter and flag arrays after transmission of the same packet has ended. The independent operations of logging and furnishing the information allows management statistics gathering of successive packets with minimal interframe gaps.