Patent ID: 6876649

Claim:
A switch comprising: a plurality of core modules; a plurality of core controllers operating concurrently and independently, one core controller for each of said core modules; a plurality of egress modules each having a link from each of said core modules; and a plurality of ingress modules each having; an ingress controller; a plurality of ingress ports each having an ingress buffer; and a link to each of said core modules; wherein said ingress controller is operable to sort packets arriving at said ingress buffer into ingress queues, each ingress queue corresponding to one of said egress modules; issue packet-transfer requires each specifying an egress module; distribute the packet-transfer requires among said plurality of core modules for scheduling so that each of said core controllers receives a portion of said transfer requests; and periodically determine ingress-queue occupying for each respective egress module and send a capacity-request vector to a selected one of the core controllers, the capacity-request vector including capacity-allocation requests for connections to a subset of the egress modules.