Path: utzoo!yetti!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: IP protocol on a chip(s)
Summary: Its been done for other protocols...
Keywords: Faster IP? MNP chip
Message-ID: <1969@geac.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 87 13:33:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: geac.1969
Posted: Mon Dec 14 08:33:21 1987
References: <4994@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Organization: The little blue rock next to that twinkly star.
Lines: 45

In article <4994@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> david@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) writes:
>
>I frequently hear that TCP/IP is too slow of a protocol.  I have seen
>good ethernet boards on a Sun push packets as fast as 5Mbps and claims
>of Crays pushing > 10Mbps on hyperchannels.
>...
>To increase TCP/IP performance has anyone looked into making an IP
>protocol chip or chipset?
  I don't know about IP, but several protocols have been put into
modem controllers.  One I know of in some detail is MNP, an combined
sync/async facility with Network, Host-host and Applications layers
(ie, it fits the ARM).  It explicitly does **not** consider routing
or network management, as it is restricted to running on a
circuit-switched line.
  Another is the telebit "UUCP emulation" facility in their
high-speed modems.

>...  Would this be practical to do given
>the complexity of IP?  IP on a chip would also be interesting from
>a routing point of view.
  Neither of the above runs on an unprogrammable chip: even the
chip-level MNP being developed by two people on this net has a z80
as part of the silicon.
  If one restricts the chipset to doing what it is good at and
passing the administrivia off to a large host to do what **it** is
good at, you have a viable project.  Deciding exactly what to put on
the chip is a design/marketing (ie $) issue.

>
>Any comments on the idea and potential problems that I may not
>have thought of?
>	David Robinson		elroy!david@csvax.caltech.edu     ARPA
>				david@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov	  ARPA
>				{cit-vax,ames}!elroy!david	  UUCP

  I think its a **good** idea.  I also think it can be done
"inexpensively".


--dave (It's almost an old idea...) c-b
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind)
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