Patent ID: 6647017
Filing Date: 2003-11-11
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A switching fabric arrangement for a packet-switched telecommunications network, through which switching fabric arrangement packets are sent, switching fabric arrangement comprising:several input ports and several output ports, several switching elements, each comprising several inputs and several outputs, said switching elements being arranged in succession to form several successive switching stages and being interconnected with internal links leading from one switching stage to another switching stage, a connection being established through the switching elements and internal links from an input port to a desired output port, wherein packets arriving at the switching fabric are assigned a time stamp depending on a time of arrival of the packets, each switching element routes a packet arriving at its input to at least one of its outputs based on routing information associated with the packet time stamp information relating to the packets to be transported is transmitted to at least some of the switching elements, and in at least some of the switching elements, a relative order of the packets to be sent is established based on the time stamp information received at the switching elements so that on each outgoing link from the switching element, the packets are arranged according to an order indicated by the time stamps, wherein a predetermined number of discrete values are used as the time stamps, in the switching elements in which the relative order of the packets to be sent is established based on the time stamps, wherein time stamp-related buffers are used, incoming packets are stored in the time stamp-related buffers so that each packet arriving from outside the switching fabric is stored in the time stamp-related buffer according to a corresponding time stamp, and the time stamp-related buffers are emptied by reading one time stamp-related buffer at a time, and each packet read out from the time stamp-related buffer is routed to the output indicated by an address contained in the packet.