Patent ID: 6895015
Filing Date: 2005-05-17
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A multiport data communication system for switching data packets between ports, the data communication system comprising: a plurality of receive ports for receiving data packets, a decision making engine responsive to the received data packets for controlling transmission of the received data packets to at least one selected transmit port, the decision making engine including: a plurality of queuing devices corresponding to the plurality of the receive ports for queuing data blocks representing the data packets received by the corresponding receive ports, logic circuitry for receiving the data blocks from the plurality of queuing devices in successive time slots to identify the at least one selected transmit port for each data packet, and a scheduler interacting with the plurality of queuing devices for dynamically allocating each of the time slots to one of the plurality of queuing devices in accordance with data traffic at the corresponding receive ports, wherein the scheduler is configured to receive a request for a time slot from a queuing device of the plurality of queuing devices when the queuing device holds data to be processed by the logic circuitry.