Patent ID: 7443863

Claim:
An asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cell switching method, comprising: a) dividing an input ATM adaptation layer 2 (AAL 2 ) cell into AAL 2 type common part sublayer (CPS) packets; b) sequentially storing the divided CPS packets into a plurality of first storage areas each having a queue type structure and with each first storage area corresponding to a different one of a plurality of virtual paths/virtual channels (VPs/VCs) of the respective CPS packets, and sequentially storing first identifiers of the plurality of first storage areas in a sequential order, each first identifier corresponding to a different one of the plurality of first storage areas and to a different one of the plurality of VPs/VCs, wherein the sequentially storing the first identifiers includes generating a first reference table that maps each of the first identifiers in the sequential order to the corresponding one of the VPs/VCs; c) reading the stored CPS packets in the order of the first identifiers stored in the first reference table, sequentially storing the read CPS packets in a plurality of second storage areas used to route the GPS packets to each destination, wherein each of the plurality of second storage areas has a queue type structure and that corresponds to a different one of a plurality of destination channel identifiers (CIDs), and sequentially storing second identifiers of the plurality of second storage areas, each second identifier corresponding to a different one of the plurality of second storage areas and to a different one of the plurality of destination CIDs, wherein the sequential storing the second identifiers includes generating a second reference table that maps each of the second identifiers in the sequential order to the corresponding one of the plurality of destination CIDs; and d) reading the CPS packets, in the sequential order of the second identifiers, from the second storage areas and multiplexing the read CPS packets to generate a reconstructed AAL 2 cell, wherein c) comprises changing origination CIDs of the read CPS packets to the corresponding destination CIDs, and sequentially storing the read CPS packets in the plurality of second storage areas corresponding to the destination CIDs.