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:
Apr. 18, 2006
Filed:
Dec. 27, 2002
Randy Ryals, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Jeffrey Prince, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
H. Earl Ferguson, Los Altos, CA (US);
Mike K. Noll, San Jose, CA (US);
Derek H. Pitcher, Newark, CA (US);
Randy Ryals, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Jeffrey Prince, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
H. Earl Ferguson, Los Altos, CA (US);
Mike K. Noll, San Jose, CA (US);
Derek H. Pitcher, Newark, CA (US);
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, CA;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for managing the flow of data within a switching device is provided. The switching device includes network interface cards connected to a common backplane. Each interface card is configured to support the maximum transfer rate of the backplane by maintaining a 'pending' queue to track data that has been received but for which the appropriate routing destination has not yet been determined. The switching device includes a switch controller that maintains a central card/port-to-address table. When an interface card receives data with a destination address that is not known to the interface card, the interface card performs a direct memory access over a bus that is separate from the backplane to read routing data directly from the central table in the switch controller. Each interface card builds and maintains a routing information table in its own local memory that only includes routing information for the destination addresses that the interface card is most likely to receive.