Method and system for multicasting cells in an ATM protocol adapter
US6101187A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 10, 1997 |
| Grant date | Aug 8, 2000 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Dec 10, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L49/55
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A protocol adapter for an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cell switching system has a receive part and a transmit part, the receive part being arranged to convert an incoming ATM cell into a cell structured with a payload and a header including an output index (OI). The transmit part is arranged to convert the structured cell after it is routed through the switching system into an ATM cell, and to output the ATM cell on the ATM communication lines. The transmit part has cell processing logic for adding a bit (mother-bit) in the header of each incoming structured The output index of a mother cell is used to access a location in a look-up table which contains for each output index, a multicast bit for indicating whether the cell is to be multicasted or not, a queue index for indicating a location where to enqueue the cell before it is outputted from the transmit part, a new VP/VC/Li value for constructing a new header, and a next-output index. For the multicast cells, the queue index is replaced by a multicast-queue index in order to store the multicast cells in a dedicated multicast queue. When a multicast mother cell reaches the head of the multicast queue, one or more daughter ce…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.