Patent ID: 7738458

Claim:
A communication device for routing packets, comprising: a packet separator to separate a packet received from a network into a data part with a variable length and a header part with a fixed length; a memory to store the data part separated by the packet separator; an internal packet generator to generate a fixed-length internal packet by generating a fixed-length internal header including an address of the separated data part and attaching the generated fixed-length internal header to the separated fixed-length header part; a route searcher to search for a route for the fixed-length internal packet based on the header part of the fixed-length internal packet; a plurality of queues associated with respective packet output ports for storing the fixed-length internal packet routed by the route searcher; a reader to read out the data part from the memory in accordance with the address included in the fixed-length internal header of the fixed-length internal packet output from the queues; and a packet generator to generate an output packet from the variable-length data part read out of the memory by the reader and the header part of the fixed-length internal packet read out of the corresponding queue.