Patent ID: 9100313
Filing Date: 2015-08-04
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. An apparatus comprising: an ingress stage that includes a plurality of ingress port subsystems each comprising a plurality of ingress ports that receive packets; an unscheduled crossbar switching fabric connected to the ingress stage and comprising a plurality of crossbar switching elements that receive one or more packets from at least one of the ingress port subsystems; and an egress stage connected to the unscheduled crossbar switching fabric, wherein the egress stage includes a plurality of egress port subsystems each comprising: wherein a first crossbar switching element generates a negative acknowledgement message for transmission to a first ingress port subsystem when a first packet received from the first ingress port subsystem cannot be forwarded to the egress stage, and wherein the first ingress port subsystem is configured to randomly select a second crossbar from among the plurality of crossbar switching elements that are not the first crossbar switching element and to retransmit the first packet to the second crossbar switching element for forwarding to the egress stage after receipt of the negative acknowledgement message.