Fibre Channel Interface
	The Fibre Channel interface brings the speed and flexibility of the Fibre Channel protocol to a RAM-SAN.  An onboard embedded processor deals directly with all interface overhead, and allows maximum Fibre Channel bandwidth to be achieved with all protocols and topologies.  The Fibre Channel interface can be configured in an arbitrated loop or in a switched network topology ideal for storage area networks.
	The Fibre Channel Link
	The Fibre Channel standard was developed to provide a high performance communication link with a simple but expandable protocol.   The Fibre Channel physical link is a proven and highly reliable technology with many vendors manufacturing compatible devices.  The gigabit optical interconnect is widely accepted and is readily available at a reasonable cost.  The Fibre Channel fabric standard can be incorporated with multiple levels of sophistication: from a simple basic data frame with a few control bytes to a multi-layered protocol.  Time critical applications use the simpler protocol with the high level protocols reserved for multi-computer technology.  High performance and flexibility are the cornerstones of the Fibre Channel protocol.
	Fibre Channel Interface Features
	The FC interface was designed for speed.   Industry standard Fibre Channel hardware allows the FC interface to transfer data at 100 MB/sec full or half-duplex giving the FC interface a maximum bandwidth of 200MB/sec.  The FC interface's dual port memory structure provides for continuous data flow and protocol encoding/decoding.  All Fibre Channel exception handling is supported including packet retransmission.  An embedded Power PC processor is responsible for supporting Fibre Channel upper-level protocols with flow control.  Likewise, the FC interface can be customized to support various proprietary protocols.   In summary, the FC interface is well suited to achieve the performance and the flexibility that the Fibre Channel protocol offers.