Patent ID: 6570882
Filing Date: 2003-05-27
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A method of managing a queue of cells received from a plurality of sources, the method comprising:storing the last cell received at a receive address in a buffer, establishing for the last cell received a time stamp representing a theoretical time it is to leave the queue, inserting the receive address in a programmer at a location identified by the time stamp of the last cell received, setting an occupancy bit associated with the time stamp to an active state, wherein successive occupancy bits are grouped into words and a flag is established for each of these words that has the value 0 when all the bits of the words are inactive and that has the value 1 otherwise, and, after setting an occupancy bit, the flag of the corresponding word is recalculated, and successive flags are grouped into fields and an index is established for each of these fields which has the value 0 when all the bits of the word are inactive and which has the value 1 otherwise, determining the first cell(s) to leave the queue from the first active occupancy bit following that of the cell that has just left the queue, the occupancy bits being classified in increasing order of the associated time stamps, and setting the occupancy bit of the first cell to an inactive state when it leaves the queue.