Patent ID: 8270397

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a switch core, a plurality of Fibre Channel ports, each Fibre Channel port comprises port control logic situated between the Fibre Channel link and the said switch core, route determination logic coupled to said switch core and said Fibre Channel port control logic, the route determination logic comprising a state machine, configured to analyze a link speed of each of the plurality of Fibre Channel ports, wherein the state machine has a plurality of modes of operation including: a first mode of operation in which the state machine is idle and monitors for signals, a second mode of operation, responsive to detecting a signal indicating a route request was generated from one or more port control logic modules, a third mode of operation, responsive to decoding the results of a route determination logic block, and a fourth mode of operation, invoked based on the link speeds of the Fibre Channel ports, responsive to the signal to create a route, asserts signals to build a route response back to the port control logic, one of the signals capable of indicating to the port control to wait until the entire frame is received.