Patent ID: 6151322
Filing Date: 2000-11-21
Classification: G06F,G11C,H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
In an integrated multiport network switch comprising an integrated chip having a plurality of ports for transmitting data packets to and receiving data packets from a data network, each port having associated therewith a media access controller (MAC), at least one of said ports being designated a VLAN port for virtual local area network (VLAN) operation, a method for processing received packets comprising the steps of:receiving a data packet at said VLAN port;determining whether the received data packet is a VLAN tagged packet;striping the VLAN tag from said packet in response to a positive VLAN tagged packet determination in said determining step;forwarding the stripped VLAN tag to a rules checker in the switch; andapplying the remainder of the stripped packet data to a receive first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer at the MAC of said VLAN port;wherein said determining step comprises the steps of:counting the number of bytes of data of a packet received at said VLAN port; andcomparing the received data after a predetermined number of counted bytes with data stored in a control register.