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:
May. 10, 2005
Filed:
Apr. 30, 2002
Kenneth M. Key, Raleigh, NC (US);
Kwok Ken Mak, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Xiaoming Sun, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Kenneth M. Key, Raleigh, NC (US);
Kwok Ken Mak, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Xiaoming Sun, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A technique for implementing a novel high-speed high-density packet buffer utilizing a combination of high-speed and low-speed memory devices. The novel packet buffer is organized as a plurality of first-in-first-out (FIFO) queues where each FIFO queue is associated with a particular input or output line. Each queue comprises a high-speed cache portion that resides in high-speed memory and a low-speed high-density portion that resides in low-speed high-density memory. Each high-speed cache portion contains FIFO data that contains head and/or tail information associated with a corresponding FIFO queue. The low-speed high-density portion contains FIFO data that is not contained in the high-speed cache portion. A queue identifier (QID) directory refills the high-speed portion of one or more queues with data from a corresponding low-speed portion. Queue head start and end offsets are used to determine whether a corresponding queue is empty.