Patent ID: 8190770

Claim:
A method of transmitting data frames to a plurality of output ports, each of the data frames having a destination associated with one of the plurality of output ports, the method comprising: at each of a plurality of input ports, partitioning a portion of each data frame to provide one or more ordered data cells each having data representative of a sequence number corresponding to an output port associated with the destination of the each data frame, the data representative of the sequence number in each data cell indicating an ordinal position of the each data cell among the one or more ordered data cells of the each data frame; and at each of the plurality of output ports, receiving a forwarded data cell for each ordered data cell associated with each data frame having a destination associated with the output port, each forwarded data cell corresponding with an ordered data cell and data frame associated with the each ordered data cell; indicating ability to accept additional data cells in a following cell interval to a plurality of crossbar sections; and completing transmission of each ordered data cell of a first data frame to a crossbar prior to a transmission of any ordered data cell of a second data frame to the crossbar.