Patent ID: 6515990
Filing Date: 2003-02-04
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A multiport data communication system for switching data packets between ports, the data communication system comprising:a plurality of ports for receiving and transmitting data packets, each port having a transmit queue storing data packets to be transmitted from the respective port; a memory storing the received data packets: a plurality of queues, each corresponding to a respective port and storing frame pointers that point to where the data packets are stored in the memory; and a plurality of logic circuitry corresponding to the plurality of ports, each logic circuitry: reading respective frame pointers from the plurality of queues, reading from the memory the respective data packets corresponding to the respective frame pointers, and writing each read data packet to the corresponding transmit queue, with substantially zero idle time between completing of reading of one data packet from the memory and beginning of reading of a subsequent data packet from the memory, wherein each logic circuitry is further configured to read a subsequent frame pointer from a corresponding queue and read the data packet from the memory corresponding to a prior frame pointer concurrently with completing reading of the prior frame pointer from a respective queue.