Patent ID: 7099325
Filing Date: 2006-08-29
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A multiport switch comprising: a plurality of receive ports, the receive ports receiving frames in a packet-switched network, the frames having a source field indicating the source of the frame and a destination field indicating an intended destination for the frame; a plurality of transmit ports, the transmit ports configured to transmit the frames in the packet-switched network; and an internal rules checking circuit coupled to the receive ports and configured to determine frame forwarding information for the received frames, the internal rules checking circuit including a plurality of address lookup tables, each of the address lookup tables including a plurality of addressable table entries for storing information relating to the frames, each of the addressable table entries including at least a vector field that identifies ports corresponding to the frames of the addressable table entries and an address field that identifies network addresses of the frames, the internal rules checking circuit being further configured to write to the addressable entries of the plurality of address lookup tables such that multiple entries having the same address in the address tables are alternately written to different ones of the plurality of address lookup tables.