Patent ID: 7460544

Claim:
A method of scheduling data packet transmission in a data communication network for a grouping of packets, comprising: reading the grouping of packets, the packets being configured in a two dimensional mesh structure of N columns, each column containing M packets, each of N and M being greater than 1; selecting a column best packet from the packets in each column; promoting the best column packet from each column into a corresponding entry in a final row containing N packets; reading the final row; selecting a final best packet from the final row; promoting the final best packet from the grouping of packets; replacing the promoted final best packet in the grouping with a replacement packet within the grouping; reading the column containing the replacement packet; selecting a column best packet from the packets in the column containing the replacement packet; promoting the best column packet from the column containing the replacement packet into a corresponding location in the final row; and repeating the reading the final row and selecting the final best packet from the final row.