Patent ID: 7184403

Claim:
A method comprising: a memory circuit receiving a data frame to be subsequently transmitted to a destination device via a switching fabric, wherein the data frame comprises header and data fields, and wherein the switching fabric comprises a plurality of data ports through which data frames enter or exit the switching fabric; selecting a first multi-bit value from a plurality of first multi-bit values according to the data contained in one of the header fields, wherein the selected first multi-bit value comprises a plurality of bits; selecting a second multi-bit value from a plurality of second multi-bit values according to the data contained in the one of the header fields, wherein the selected second multi-bit value comprises a plurality of bits; wherein the bits of each of the first and second multi-bit values corresponds, respectively, to the plurality of data ports; bit wise logically ANDing the selected first and second multi-bit values to produce a third multi-bit value; adding the third multi-bit value to the one of the header fields of the received data frame; transmitting the received data frame from the memory circuit to the switching fabric after adding the third multi-bit value to the received data frame; the data frame exiting the switching fabric through one or more data ports thereof in accordance with the values of the bits of the third multi-bit value.