Patent ID: 7583597

Claim:
A method for routing fibre channel frames using a fibre channel switch element having a plurality of ports, where each port includes a receive segment for receiving fibre channel frames and a transmit segment for transmitting fibre channel frames; comprising: (a) requesting an early frame transfer of a fibre channel frame from a memory location of the receive segment of a fibre channel port to the transmit segment of the fibre channel port, before the transmit segment completes a status check, wherein the transmit segment sends a request to the receive segment for the early frame transfer; (b) activating an early frame transfer; wherein the early frame transfer is activated at the receive segment; (c) after completing the status check, determining if there is a need for aborting the early frame transfer request sent to the receive segment in step (a); wherein the transmit segment determines if there is a need for aborting the early frame transfer request and if there is a need, generates a request-abort command to abort the early frame transfer request and sends the request abort command to the receive segment; and (e) after aborting the early frame transfer, selecting another frame from a different source port while continuing to have the memory location in step (a) available for the transmit segment to re-request the frame transfer from the same memory location.