Patent ID: 7095744

Claim:
A system for switching variable size packets in a network comprising: at least one ingress controller which receives a plurality of packets and which segments each of the packets into fixed sized fragments, the at least one ingress controller having a time-clock, all ingress controller's time-clocks are synchronized to within a tolerance, each fragment is tagged with at least a unique source of ID, a time-stamp, and a fragment-number to form a cell, each cell belonging to one packet having the same time-stamp value, the ingress controller sends each of the cells through a link such that a cell's destination is reachable through that link; a fabric element which receives cells from a plurality of inputs links, where such cells are ordered, and sends ordered cells through a plurality of outputs, and through which the destination of the cells is reachable, where the cell order is defined such that a cell ahead of another either has a lagging time stamp, or if the timestamp is the same the cell ahead of another has a source-id which has a predetermined priority, or if both the timestamp and the source-id are the same the cell ahead of another has a lagging fragment-number; and at least one egress controller which receives ordered cells from the plurality of input links, and sends ordered cells through an output, where such order results in complete packets.