A lightweight transfer protocol for the US Navy SAFENET local area network standard

The author describes lightweight express transfer protocol (XTP) which has been proposed for the US Navy survivable adaptable fiber optic embedded network (SAFENET) standard. XTP provides the functionality of the IOS/OSI transport and network layer protocols, which have been unified into a single transfer-layer protocol. Unlike conventional transport and network layer protocols, which are implemented in software, the XTP has been designed for implementation in hardware. A protocol engine project has been initiated to develop an XTP VLSI chipset to achieve near-media-rate performance and the degree of interoperability only available through hardware.<
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