Patent · US Expired

Buffering of point-to-point and/or point-to-multipoint ATM cells

US6128295A · kind A · utility

37Cited by
10References
13Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJul 11, 1997
Grant dateOct 3, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 11, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
  • CPC primaryY10S370/905
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching device (20) has ATM cells (both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint) routed therethrough to one or more physical output links (31-38). The switching device (20) includes a cell buffer memory (92) which is the sole storage area on an egress exchange terminal for all cells, including point-to-multipoint cells, regardless of to which physical output link the cell is destined. For point-to-multipoint cells, pointers to the location of the cell in the cell buffer memory (92) are stored in one or more pointer queues (114), the pointer queues (114) corresponding to physical output links over which the point-to-multipoint cells are expected to be propagated. As each physical output link is selected, the pointer in the corresponding pointer queue is used to obtain the cell from the cell buffer memory (92) for readout on the selected link.

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