Motorola Corporation

Harold K Williamson

Charles Christopher Hill

Ralph E Snowden

Brian A Carr

Rajesh Mangal

James Holbrook

Flow control in a distributed switch fabric () includes detecting at least one of a congestion condition () in a downstream transceiver port () and an oversubscribing condition () of a channel buffer (), where the downstream transceiver port () and the channel buffer () both correspond to a channel () of a traffic manager (). Packets begin accumulating in the channel buffer (). Per-flow flow control () operates to modify transmission of the packets over the channel () to the channel buffer () if the channel buffer () reaches a threshold value (). Link level flow control () operates transparently to the traffic manager () if the congestion condition () is detected and the channel buffer () fails to reach the threshold value ().

Method of flow control

An improved system and technique for processing a communications session in a data communications system suitably includes the steps of receiving the communications session at a line interface card, embedding the communications session into an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) virtual circuit at the line interface card, transporting the virtual circuit from the line interface card to a processor card via a backplane. The processor card suitably extracts the communications session from the virtual circuit, and processes the communications session as appropriate.

Communications system embedding communications session into ATM virtual circuit at line interface card and routing the virtual circuit to a processor card via a backplane

Growing community of inventors

Tempe, AZ, United States of America

Harold K Williamson