Patent ID: 7813367
Filing Date: 2010-10-12
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A system comprising: a backplane; a first data pipeline, the first data pipeline coupling a media access control (MAC) interface configured to facilitate receipt and transmission of packets over a physical interface, a receive packet processor configured to perform processing of packets received from the MAC interface, a first memory configured to store packets processed by the receive packet processor, and a backplane manager configured to read the packets from the first memory, to compute an appropriate destination for the packets and to dispatch the packets to the backplane; a second data pipeline, the second data pipeline coupling a transmission accumulator configured to receive packets from the backplane and to organize the packets for transmission, a second memory configured to store packets processed by the transmission accumulator, a transmit packet processor configured to read the packets from the second memory and to schedule the transmission of packets, and the MAC interface; and a path for forwarding packets from the first memory to the transmission accumulator without using the backplane.