In the past decades, the conventional multi-layer protocols implemented in
software were fast enough to match the speed of the lines which were measur
ed in Kilobits per second. Nowadays, due to the development of fiber optics
and copper wire technologies, line speeds are measured in Gigabits per sec
ond. However, the advantages of high-speed technologies are lost in the lar
ge processing overhead of the high-level protocols, leading to a large dela
y and low throughput.
The potential of hardware implementation has influenced the design of the c
ommunication networks. Hence, we propose a hardware implementation of the t
ransport protocol layer for the OSI model. It is probably easier and cheape
r today, with the advances in VLSI, to implement a large and fast communica
tions protocol as hardware on a single silicon chip rather than in software
. The main objective is to prove that the hardware implementation is logica
lly feasible. The study concentrates on the queuing system that controls th
e data flow between the two end users. This includes detecting duplicate, l
ost, and mis-sequenced data. The study also includes hardware complexity es
timation of the proposed architecture.