Design And Implementation Of A TCP Protocol Processing Unit

With the network speed rapidly increasing, CPU can't afford the network bandwidth. So the TCP/IP protocol processing hardware unit becomes an efficient way to offload CPU burdens.This thesis proposes a TCP/IP Internet Protocol Processing System (IPPS) architecture, which can be used in kinds of networks. IPPS is to implement transport layer, network layer and data link layer protocols. It can be used in high-speed network and limited-resource devices.The emphasis of the thesis is to present the design and implementation of TCP Processing Unit (TPU). TPU implements the basic functions of TCP, including segment transmitting, segment receiving, retransmission, disordering segment re-ordering and so on.The features of the design are as follows:1) High speed. Application specific processor's performance can meet the high-speed network requirement well.2) Dynamic resource allocation strategy. In theory, the design supports limitless TCP connections as long as there is enough memory space.3) Reducing large data copies. The whole processing is based on descriptor, so there is no need to move data in the processing.4) Good expansibility. It's easy to suit the design to kinds of networks through changing the data link layer modules.The design is implemented on Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA. The performance estimation shows the system can meet 100Mbps network bandwidth only if it works in 11MHz. In fact, the system can work in 83.5MHz.