Patent · US Expired

Independently sizable memory pages for a plurality of connection ID types in a network switch

US5991297A · kind A · utility

83Cited by
4References
27Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 28, 1997
Grant dateNov 23, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 28, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L49/30
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus are disclosed for selectively accessing and independently sizing connection identification tables within a network switch. Upon receipt of a data unit, such as an asynchronous transfer mode cell at an input port of an Input Output Module, a plurality of selection bits are inserted into the cell header which are used to select one of a plurality of connection identifiers. The VPI/VCI addresses are mapped into a connection identifier and the connection identifier is also inserted within the respective cell header. The connection identifier may comprise an unicast connection identifier, a multicast connection identifier, or a redundant unicast identifier. The unicast, multicast and redundant identifiers are either stored in separate tables at call setup and the tables are independently selectable via use of the selection bits stored within the cell header. Alternatively, the selection bits are employed to specify a register which points to the first address for the respective type of identifiers. Thus, identifiers of a particular connection type are accessible via a base address plus an offset address. In the described manner, tables or portions of tables contai…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.