Patent ID: 8761172

Claim:
A hybrid data switching method for both unicast cells and multicast cells, comprising: receiving switching requests for switching a plurality of cells, wherein the plurality of cells comprises both unicast cells and multicast cells; arbitrating the switching requests and obtaining arbitration results for each of the received unicast cells and the multicast cells; and performing, by a multicast switching unit, multicast switching for the received multicast cells through a store-and-forward shared memory mechanism if the arbitration result is to perform multicast switching for the multicast cells; performing, by a unicast switching unit, unicast switching for the received unicast cells through a crossbar mechanism including a matching process, if the arbitration result is to perform unicast switching for the unicast cells; wherein when performing the multicast switching through the store-and-forward shared memory mechanism, no matching process in the crossbar mechanism is required; and the store-and-forward shared memory mechanism is implemented in at least one of the following way: a memory is divided into a plurality of buffer areas, each independent buffer area corresponding to a destination port queue of an egress port; and the memory is shared in a link list mode, such that a link list in the link list mode corresponds to the destination port queue.