Patent ID: 7502319

Claim:
An Ethernet packet transmission apparatus comprising: a packet transceiving unit for transceiving an Ethernet packet through a plurality of Ethernet ports; a MAC header processing unit for receiving the Ethernet packet from the packet transceiving unit and reading header information from the received Ethernet packet to detect a predetermined pause frame signal and output port state information on a corresponding port, said port state information including a timer value representing a transmission pause time on the corresponding port; a packet processing unit for receiving the Ethernet packet from the MAC header processing unit, classifying the received Ethernet packet on a service or destination basis depending on a predetermined standard, assigning a priority label to the classified Ethernet packet on a packet-by-packet basis, and outputting memory state information on the corresponding port, said memory state information including an available memory capacity for the corresponding port; a congestion controlling unit for controlling a position in an output sequence of the Ethernet packet depending on the assigned priority label; and a signal processing unit for receiving and comparing the port state information and the memory state information with each other, and outputting either a memory control signal or a congestion control signal depending on the comparison result to control the packet processing unit and the congestion controlling unit, wherein, if the pause frame signal is detected, the port state information including the timer value on the corresponding port and memory state information including the available memory capacity on the corresponding port are sent to the signal processor to control the packet processing unit and the congestion controlling unit before applying drop rates to the Ethernet packets.