Patent ID: 9503372
Filing Date: 2016-11-22
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. An integrated circuit comprising: a plurality of egress ethernet ports; a plurality of second ingress ethernet ports, wherein a second ingress ethernet port is configurable to operate in a selected one of a command mode and a data mode, wherein the second ingress ethernet port does not power up in the command mode and can only be put into the command mode as a result of a port modeset command being received onto an ingress ethernet port operating in the command mode; a first ingress ethernet port that powers up in the command mode, wherein in the command mode the first ingress ethernet port can receive and carry out a port modeset command, wherein receiving and carrying out of the port modeset command causes one of the second ingress ethernet ports identified by the port modeset command to operate in the command mode; and a flow table structure adapted to store flow entries, wherein the flow table structure is used by the integrated circuit to determine which egress ethernet port will output a packet that was received onto the integrated circuit via one of the second ingress ethernet ports operating in the data mode.