Patent ID: 7012896

Claim:
A dedicated bandwidth data communication switch backplane, comprising: a plurality of switching controllers; a plurality of packet buses, each of the packet buses comprising: a root, coupled to one of the plurality of switching controllers, for receiving packet data from the associated switching controller; and a plurality of leaves for transmitting packet data received from the root, wherein of the plurality of leaves are coupled to two or more of the plurality of switching controllers; each of the plurality of switching controllers is adapted to concurrently transmit packet data to every other switching controller, and each of the plurality of switching controllers is adapted to concurrently receive packet data from two or more of the plurality of switching controllers; and, a plurality of claim lines, each claim line interfacing with one or more of the plurality of the switching controllers and having an associaition with a different one of the plurality of packet busses, wherein a switching controller transmits a claim signal on a packet bus's associated claim line upon identifying a packet propagated on the packet bus for capturing.