Patent ID: 7126956

Claim:
A link layer device including at least one unique identifier associated therewith, an input data line for receiving a plurality of received data packets, each of the plurality of data packets including a destination identifier and a plurality of data, the link layer device comprising: a data receiver coupled to the input data line; a channel mapper coupled to the data receiver; a received data FIFO coupled to the channel mapper; a feed-forward data FIFO coupled to the channel mapper; the channel mapper receiving the plurality of received data packets and being configured and arranged to divert the received data packets, having a destination identifier equivalent to the unique destination identifier, to the received data FIFO, and to divert the remaining plurality of received data packets to the feed-forward data FIFO; a transmitter data FIFO containing a plurality of data packets to be transmitted, each of the plurality of data packets to be transmitted having a destination identifier and a plurality of data; and a data transmitter having an output coupled to an output data line, and an input coupled to the feed-forward data FIFO and to the transmitter data FIFO, the data transmitter configured and arranged to retrieve data packets from the feed-forward data FIFO and the transmitter data FIFO and to transmit the retrieved data packets on the output data line.