Patent ID: 7263098

Claim:
An AAL 2 switch for multicast, comprising: a plurality of receiver circuits each receiving and demultiplexing an AAL 2 packet for conversion into at least one common part sublayer (CPS) packet; a plurality of memories configured to store CPS packets, said at least one CPS packet stored in one of the memories at a predetermined address indicated by a routing tag allocated to said at least one CPS packet by a corresponding one of the receiver circuits; and a plurality of transmitter circuits each coupled to the plurality of memories to search the plurality of memories, convert the searched CPS packet into an AAL 2 packet, and transmit the AAL 2 packet, wherein said one memory stores information indicating that said at least one CPS packet is to be multicast through two or more transmitter circuits and wherein the two or more transmitter circuits search the memories to locate the multicast information and transmit the AAL 2 packet based on the search results.