US Patent 11637739 Direct memory access (DMA) engine for diagnostic data

A network-connected device includes at least one communication port, packet processing circuitry and Diagnostics Direct Memory Access (DMA) Circuitry (DDC). The at least one communication port is configured to communicate packets over a network. The packet processing circuitry is configured to receive, buffer, process and transmit the packets. The DDC is configured to receive a definition of (i) one or more diagnostic events, and (ii) for each diagnostic event, a corresponding list of diagnostic data that is generated in the packet processing circuitry and that pertains to the diagnostic event, and, responsively to occurrence of a diagnostic event, to gather the corresponding list of diagnostic data from the packet processing circuitry.