Method and apparatus for implementing receive queue for packet-based communications

A receiver for an InfiniBand network contains a buffer and a control memory. A set of pointers for receive queues in the buffer is maintained in the control memory. Two independent queues exist for incoming messages from a given source, one for writes and the other for reads. The receiver controls the various queue pointers to generate appropriate acknowledgments and negative acknowledgment messages, and to transfer data as required to and from the host over an internal bus. Preferably, the receiver delays acknowledging certain write requests if requests are pending on the read queue. Preferably, the control memory and the major control functions of the receiver are implemented in hardware on a ASIC chip.