Patent ID: 8850089

Claim:
A method comprising: configuring a same memory for operation at a same time as both a page based scheme and a pointer based scheme for one or more egress final buffers, and wherein said page based scheme uses a memory's page pointer to store a VCO packet based on said VCO packet's priority level, such that arrived lower priority packets do not block later arrived higher priority packets, and wherein the pointer based scheme stores a VC1/VC5 packet, and wherein all available memory page pointers are stored in a free buffer list; transmitting a packet from said one or more egress final buffers, wherein said transmitted packet has associated with it an index denoted transmitted packet index; using said transmitted packet index to store in a Packet Retransmission Mapper a Transfer Mode associated with said transmitted packet, a Memory Page Pointer, a VOQ Index, and a VOQ Read Pointer, wherein said Transfer Mode is selected from the group consisting of RT, and CT; and using said transmitted packet index to store in a Dword Count Mapper a count of dwords transmitted for one or more VC1/VC5 packets.