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:
Nov. 20, 2001
Filed:
Mar. 06, 1998
Milan Momirov, San Francisco, CA (US);
Nortel Networks Limited, Montreal, CA;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for increasing the throughput and forwarding rate of a switch fabric are provided. According to one aspect of the present invention, a packet forwarding device includes a plurality of port interface devices (PIDs), memory access circuitry, and a management device. The PIDs are configured to fragment packets into cells. A portion of a cell serves as forwarding information. The memory access circuitry receives cell data from the PIDs to receive cell data. The memory access circuitry includes a data interface that outputs cell data and an independent control interface that outputs forwarding information. A memory is coupled to the data interface of the memory access circuitry to temporarily store the cell data received from the memory access circuitry. A management device is coupled to the independent control interface of the memory access circuitry to receive the forwarding information. The management device employs the forwarding information to organize cells into one or more groups. According to another aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for forwarding data through a network device. A first port interface receives a packet. The first port interface transfers a cell, including data from the packet and forwarding information associated with the packet, to an intermediate device. The intermediate device outputs the cell to a memory via a data path and outputs the forwarding information to a queue managing device via a separate and independent control path. Based upon the forwarding information, an output queue with which to associate the cell may be determined. Ultimately, the cell is transferred to a second port interface device associated with the output queue.