Patent ID: 7646780

Claim:
A system for reordering data packets at a destination processor in a packet switching network, wherein a plurality of source processors transmit the data packets to the destination processor via one or more communication fabrics, and wherein a sequence identifier is associated with each data packet, the system comprising: time stamp logic that operates to associate a receive time indicator with each received data packet; enqueue logic that operates to compute an expiration time for each received packet based on the receive time indicator, and to store the expiration time into a table based on the sequence identifiers associated with the received packets; and dequeue logic that operates to read the table to determine the received data packets to output in an output stream, so that the received data packets are output in a selected order, wherein the dequeue logic also operates to determine a true expiration time for one or more unreceived data packets from the expiration times associated with received packets, and wherein if the true expiration time for a selected unreceived data packet is reached, the dequeue logic operates to omit the selected unreceived data packet from the output stream.