Patent ID: 6418120
Filing Date: 2002-07-09
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
Data switch apparatus comprising:a plurality of output ports; at least one input ports receiving incoming data units each having a data section and destination address information; a data transfer mechanism effecting a point to multipoint transfer of data by sending at least one incoming data unit from one of the at least one input ports to more than one output port from among the plurality of output ports; a plurality of output buffers between the data transfer mechanism and the plurality of output ports respectively, each output buffer holding at least one reserved place of one data unit for each input port; wherein each output buffer is operative to send a yes/no message to each individual input port indicating whether or not the at least one reserved place for said individual input port in said output buffer is available, and wherein each of the at least one input ports holds each incoming data unit at least until the yes/no message from the output buffer corresponding to that data unit's destination address indicates that that output buffer is available to receive data.