Patent ID: 7475177
Filing Date: 2009-01-06
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for time and frequency distribution for bufferless data crossbar switch systems, comprising: distributing a global clock signal in a clustered computing system over a separate channel to a plurality of line cards or adapters including a sending line card or adapter and a receiving line card or adapter; switching, through a bufferless data crossbar switch, data from the sending line card or adapter, the data being encoded with a time value from the global clock signal, the data comprising a plurality of data packets each uniquely and consistently labeled in a synchronous manner, without any built-in sequence number fields being included in a packet header, and without any built-in sequence number fields being included in a packet trailer; scheduling using the time value by generating a schedule for instructing each of the plurality of line cards or adapters as to when a specific action is to be performed, wherein the specific action comprises specifying one or more of a plurality of inputs of each of the plurality of line cards or adapters that are to be switched to one or more of a plurality of outputs of each of the plurality of line cards at each of a plurality of scheduled times; encoding the schedule in such a way that the global clock signal and the time value can be derived from the schedule; and performing error detection and error recovery using the time value, wherein if the data is corrupt as received by the receiving line card or adapter, the time value is used to initiate a retransmission of the data from the sending line card or adapter.