Patent ID: 7339944

Claim:
A packet switching system including a plurality of ingress control units, a plurality of egress control units, and a switch fabric coupled to the plurality of ingress control units and the plurality of egress control units, characterized in that packets received by the plurality of ingress control units are stored in the switching fabric, and each egress control unit identifies and requests from the switch fabric a packet destined for the egress control unit according to its respective scheduling algorithm, the switch fabric retrieving and transmitting the requested packet to the requesting egress control unit for forwarding the packet to a destination, the switch fabric transmits a notification message to one or more egress control units, the notification message including address information that may be used for retrieving at least a portion of a stored packet, and further characterized in that each of the egress control units receiving the notification message determines, based on a filling level of its respective queue, whether to discard the notification message or store in the queue the address information included in the notification message.