Patent ID: 7397794

Claim:
A method of implementing multiple virtual switch planes in a single physical switch plane, the single physical switch plane comprising a switch fabric and a plurality of queues arranged in at least a three-stage configuration, the method comprising: segmenting the single physical switch plane into the multiple virtual switch planes; segregating the queues of each stage into groups such that each group of the queues is associated with a different one of the multiple virtual switch planes, wherein a set of input ports and output ports are associated with each of the queues; receiving data units at the single physical switch plane; assigning each of the data units to one of the multiple virtual switch planes; and conveying, through different ones of the virtual switch planes, the assigned units from a first queue in a first stage and associated with one of the groups of the queues to a second queue in a next stage and associated with the one group using a subset of the set of input ports and the output ports associated with the first and second queues.