Patent ID: 6577631
Filing Date: 2003-06-10
Classification: H04L,H04M

Abstract:
A communication switching module (CSM) to be used for common switching equipment in a local area network (LAN) adapted for packet switching of Ethernet packets, said CSM comprising:a plurality of Ethernet switch cards each having a plurality of user ports and first switching means for directing said Ethernet packets to and from selected user ports, means for segmentation and reassembly (SAR) of said Ethernet packets received by and transmitted to the user ports operatively connected to said first switching means, said SAR means being adapted to segment received data of a first delay-sensitive data type and received data of a second non-delay sensitive data type, to encapsulate the segmented data into master Ethernet packets at fixed locations in said master Ethernet packets according to data type, to extract segments of the first and second data types from said packets, and to re-assemble the extracted segments into the first and second data types, and to transmit said master Ethernet packets at a selected constant rate, time domain multiplexing (TDM) means connected to the SAR means for synchronous processing of data of said first data type, and second switching means connected to the SAR means for asynchronous processing of data of said second data type.