Patent ID: 6031843
Filing Date: 2000-02-29
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A switching fabric (20), for switching frames of digital information as a sequence of buffers, each buffer containing a portion of each of the frames to be switched, for use in a switch system (10) having a plurality of processor means for receiving and transmitting frames, each said processor means coupled to at least one bi-directional digital communication line (14, 15), the switch system for switching frames between digital communication lines coupled to said processor means, the switching fabric comprising:a) a plurality of multi-line serial communication controllers, MSCCs, (16, 16a), each connected to at least one processor means, each MSCC having means for receiving from, and outputting to, the processor means the sequence of buffers; andb) a backplane (13) connected to each MSCC through a plurality of connections (22) so as to interconnect every MSCC of the switching fabric in a full mesh of bi-directional serial point-to-point links, the backplane for receiving from an MSCC the sequence of buffers and for providing said sequence of buffers to a corresponding MSCC connected to the processor means that is coupled to the destination digital communication line;wherein, for each buffer, the MSCC providing the sequence of buffers to the backplane first sends a transfer request over the backplane to the MSCC coupled to the destination digital communication line, and does not transfer the buffer until the transfer request is accepted.