Patent ID: 8665719

Claim:
A system for switching or routing data packets comprising: (a) one or more ingress elements and one or more egress elements, wherein the ingress elements receive data packets from input ports, the egress elements transmit data packets to output ports and each of the ingress and egress elements includes a control element that allocates fabric paths, (b) a switch fabric for transmitting data packets from the ingress elements to the egress elements, wherein data packets are transmitted in variably-sized payloads of fabric data units (FDUs) having total sizes varying between a minimum size and a maximum size, wherein each control element further repeatedly performs each of the steps of (i) segmenting data packets received by an ingress element and encapsulating them into the payloads of two or more FDUs, if the packets' sizes exceed the maximum FDU payload size, and encapsulating data packets received by an ingress element into the payload of a single FDU, if the packets' sizes do not exceed the maximum FDU payload size, and (ii) transmitting FDUs from the ingress elements through the switch fabric to the egress elements.