Patent ID: 7342942

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving on an integrated circuit from a switch fabric a first number of groups of switch cells, each switch cell having a switch header and a data payload, each of the groups being destined for one of a second number of output ports of the integrated circuit, the first number being greater than the second number; storing each of the data payloads of the first number of groups into a corresponding one of a plurality of buffers; retrieving from the plurality of buffers the data payloads of one of the groups of switch cells destined for each of the output ports, and outputting from the integrated circuit the data payloads retrieved such that a reassembled packet is transmitted onto a fiber optic cable for each of the groups of switch cells retrieved, the reassembled packet of a group comprising the data payloads of the switch cells of the group, the data payloads of no more than one group for each output port being output at any one time; and maintaining a reassembly context for each group of data payloads being retrieved from the plurality of buffers, each group of data payloads being retrieved being destined for a different one of the output ports such that the integrated circuit maintains no more than one reassembly context per output port, a reassembly context including a partial byte count and a partial CRC.