Patent ID: 7706361

Claim:
A communications system, comprising: (a) a plurality of switch nodes, each switch node comprising a first plurality of input ports, a second plurality of output ports, and means for selectively connecting the input ports to the output ports; and (b) means for connecting the switch nodes together in a multistage interconnect network, the means for connecting using forward channel and back channel signal paths coupled to each of the input and output ports in the switch nodes; (c) wherein each of the switch nodes stores reconfigurable mapping data that identifies available interconnections between its input and output ports, the reconfigurable mapping data comprises input and output enable vectors indicating which of the input and output ports are operational, and each of the switch nodes arbitrarily interconnects any one of its input ports with (1) any one of its output ports, (2) a predetermined number of its output ports, and (3) all of its output ports.