Patent ID: 7083422

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a backplane comprising a plurality of slots, the plurality of slots comprising at least one extended slot and at least two normal slots, each normal slot comprising a first set of connectors, each extended slot comprising the first set of connectors and an additional, second set of connectors; and signal lines connecting the connectors of the extended and normal slots to support at least one data channel between the first set of connectors of each of one or more of the at least one extended slot and the first set of connectors of each of one or more of the at least two normal slots, and to support at least one data channel between the second set of connectors of each of the one or more of the at least one extended slot and the first set of connectors of each of the one or more of the at least two normal slots, at least two line cards that interface with at least two normal slots, and at least one switch card that interfaces with the at least one extended slot, wherein the line card and the switch card each includes an interface logic to support the data channels between the line card and the switch card.