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:
Dec. 31, 2002
Filed:
May. 24, 1999
Ching Yu, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Xiaohua Zhuang, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Bahadir Erimli, Campbell, CA (US);
John M. Chiang, San Jose, CA (US);
Shashank Merchant, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Robert Williams, Cupertino, CA (US);
Edward Yang, San Jose, CA (US);
Chandan Egbert, San Jose, CA (US);
Vallath Nandakumar, Campbell, CA (US);
Ian Lam, Daly City, CA (US);
Eric Tsin-Ho Leung, San Jose, CA (US);
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A network switch having switch ports for full-duplex communication of data packets with respective network nodes according to Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) protocol dynamically allocates external memory bandwidth slots between high data rate ports. An external memory interface determines if a high data rate port makes a request for a bandwidth slot and grants the request if made. The slot is taken from a selected group which is a subset of the total number of slots. If a request for the slot is not made, the external memory interface assigns the slot to another high data rate port. Lower data rate ports in the network switch are assigned fixed slots from those slots not from within the selected group of slots. The dynamic allocation of bandwidth slots between the high data rate port enables the efficient use of limited memory bandwidth resources.