Patent · US Expired

Buffer management for merging packets of virtual circuits

US7177279B2 · kind B2 · utility

9Cited by
11References
23Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateApr 24, 2002
Grant dateFeb 13, 2007
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 23, 2024

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L2012/5682
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

In one embodiment, an apparatus for coordinating merging of packets for one or more virtual circuits (VGs). Each packet of a VC comprising a sequence of cells terminates with an end of packet (EOP) cell. The apparatus comprises one or more buffers, a buffer controller, and a merge processor. Each buffer is configured to receive cells of an associated VC and a threshold value based on traffic of the VC. When a number of cells of a packet in a buffer exceeds the corresponding dynamic threshold value, a corresponding flag of the buffer is set. The buffer controller is configured to drop all cells of the current packet in response to a set flag of a corresponding buffer. The merge processor services each buffer in accordance with a scheduling method to transfer one or more packets from each buffer to an output packet stream.

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