Patent ID: 8023507

Claim:
A communication system comprising: a first card that is configured to provide input and output interfaces, wherein the first card is configured to receive data over the interfaces in accordance with one of a plurality of communication protocols, which includes at least an internet protocol (IP) packet protocol, and is interconnected with a link; a second card that is interconnected with the link to the first card; the first card configured to send the received data in a data structure cell to the second card over the link in one of a plurality of logical channels, wherein the plurality of logical channels are configured to transfer at least a plurality of communication protocols and control data over the link; and the second card configured to receive the data structure cell from at least the first card, wherein the each of the data structure cells include a payload field that carries a payload in accordance with the plurality of communication protocols and a header field that carries information including a cell type, a payload type, a sequence indication, and a payload length, and wherein: the cell type indicates whether the data structure cell is configured as a control cell, an idle cell, or a data cell, the control cell configured to provide at least one of commands and status information about the first card to the second card, the idle cell configured to indicate that there is no data to transmit over the link, and the data cell configured to carry the received data formatted in accordance with one of the plurality of communication protocols; when the data structure cell is a data cell, the cell type further includes the sequence indication that indicates an arrangement of the received data across one or more data structure cells; the payload type indicates the one of the plurality of communication protocols according to which the payload is formatted; and the payload length indicates the length of the payload.