Patent ID: 6188686
Filing Date: 2001-02-13
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
Switching apparatus including:a plurality of data units;cross-connect switching units having input ports and output ports providing plural data transfer paths at the same time, each said data transfer path serving to pass data received at one of said input ports to one of said output ports; and connection units connected to said input ports and to said data units delivering data packets from the data units to the input ports,wherein the data units operate in pairs to exchange data packets, one of the two data units of each such data-unit pair being a source data unit and the other of the two data-unit pair being a destination data unit receiving data packets from the source data unit of the pair, and each said data-unit pair is allocated a different one of said plural data transfer paths transferring the data packets from said source data unit to said destination unit so that a set of data-unit pairs, made up of as many data-unit pairs as there are output ports, can exchange data packets at a same time and said connection units deliver data packets at the same time from the source data units of all the data-unit pairs in the set to the input ports of the data transfer paths allocated to the data-unit pairs in the set, and being further operable, so that at least one of said input ports receives data packets from at least two different data units at different respective times, which data units together constitute a data delivery group associated with that input port.