Patent ID: 6788684
Filing Date: 2004-09-07
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A cell bridge apparatus, comprising:a buffer unit for storing cell data of input cells, said input cells having a header region including multicast information and information related to a grade of a cell and a payload region used for identification of a priority degree of said cell data; a buffer control unit for controlling writing and reading out of the cell data into and from said buffer unit; a cell production control unit for producing a cell to be outputted from header information of the cell data read out from said buffer unit by said buffer control unit preferentially to process one or more cells upon multicasting or to process the cell data having a high priority degree; and a cell outputting unit for outputting the cell produced by said cell production control unit and issuing a cell data readout request to said buffer control unit; said buffer unit storing the cell data in accordance with priority degrees of the input cells; said buffer control unit being constructed in such a manner as to read out, when the cell data readout request from said cell outputting unit is received, the input cell data of a high priority degree from among the cell data stored in said buffer unit, as well as preferentially to control the copying of one or more cells upon multicasting.