Patent ID: 7349435

Claim:
A node in a telecommunication network, said node having M input ports and N output ports, said node comprising: a switch; an overhead engine comprising a multiport cell processor for generating output overhead cells based on input overhead cells; M input processors, each said input processor for receiving input frames from a respective one of said M input ports, wherein each of said input frames comprises a data portion and at least one of said input overhead cells, transmitting said data portions to said switch, and transmitting to said overhead engine (i) said input overhead cells contained within said input frames, and (ii) information associating each of said input overhead cells with the input port said input overhead cell was received on; and N output processors, each said output processor for receiving at least one of said data portions from said switch, receiving at least one of said output overhead cells from said overhead engine, building an output frame comprising at least one of said data portions and at least one of said output overhead cells, and outputting said output frame on a respective one of said output ports; wherein said multiport cell processor is CHARACTERIZED BY: a memory for storing M instances of a non-empty set of state variables, wherein each of said instances is associated with a respective one of said M input ports; and a cell processor for receiving said input overhead cells and said information associating said input overhead cells with said input ports, and generating an output overhead cell based on at least one of: (a) said input overhead cell, and (b) said instance of said set of state variables associated with the same input port as said input overhead cell, wherein said output overhead cell is associated with one of said output ports; wherein M and N are positive integers, M≧2, and N ≧2; and wherein said overhead engine comprises K of said multiport cell processors R 1 through R K , and wherein said overhead engine further comprises a dispatcher for receiving said input overhead cells from said input processors, and wherein each of said input overhead cells belongs to one of K categories C 1 through C K , and wherein for all j ε{1, 2, . . . , K} said dispatcher dispatches each of said input overhead cells belonging to said category C j to said multiport cell processor R j , wherein K is a positive integer and K≧2.