Patent ID: 7899030

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a switch having a plurality of ports, wherein for a unicast packet to be routed: the switch is configured to receive the unicast packet on a first of the plurality of ports, the unicast packet including header data including path routing information usable to route the unicast packet from an origin node to an endpoint node within a network, and wherein the path routing information includes a first turn value and a bit count value; wherein the switch is configured, based on an identifier for the first port, the first turn value, and the number of the plurality of ports, to transmit the unicast packet on a second of the plurality of ports, wherein the switch is configured to select the first turn value using the bit count value; and wherein for a multicast packet to be routed: the switch is configured to receive the multicast packet and transmit one or more copies of the multicast packet, respectively, on one or more of the plurality of ports based on multicast group information contained in the multicast packet and based on multicast routing information maintained by the switch, wherein the multicast routing information includes a plurality of entries corresponding to a plurality of multicast groups.