The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 31, 1998
Filed:
Sep. 29, 1995
Jeff Prince, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Mike Noll, San Jose, CA (US);
Bay Networks, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus providing for a switching hub in which an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch is utilized as a backplane bus. Bus arbitration, i.e., allocation of bandwidth, on the bus for autonomous ATM and LAN switching modules coupled thereto is dynamically controlled according to the needs of the various modules. In particular, the present invention allows time division multiplexing of the bus under programmatic control such that each module, e.g., an Ethernet or Token Ring module, is allowed a desired number of cell slots on the bus during which to transfer data, which the module has translated into ATM cells, across the bus.