Patent ID: 8126003

Claim:
A system for switching packet data associated with a network, the system comprising: a memory array; a plurality of input and output ports to be coupled to a network device; a plurality of serial registers each associated with a different one of the plurality of input ports, each of the serial registers further being segmented into a plurality of segments, each of the serial registers configured for receiving packet data from the associated input port at a first segment of the serial register concurrent with writing other packet data to the memory array from a second segment of the serial register, segments of respective serial registers being associated with corresponding portions of the memory array, segments of different serial registers simultaneously transferring packet data to different portions of the memory array; a switching circuit configured to route received packet data to at least one of the plurality of output ports according to a subset of the packet data; at least one media access controller (MAC) configured to transmit and receive the packet data at least one of the plurality of input and output ports; a plurality of command control units each for receiving a command that indicates a selected operation to be performed; a memory management device for determining a location in the memory array where the packet data is to be written, that determination being made in response to a command that indicates that a write operation is to be performed; a packet table that stores a pointer to the location in the memory array determined by the memory management device; and an input queue having a pointer structure, wherein each of said plurality of command control units is associated with one or more input and output ports, the commands received by a given command control unit indicating desired operations to be performed on packet data that is associated with the associated ports such that commands are distributed across the plurality of command control units, wherein said memory management device receives an indication of an input queue for storing packet data received by an input port before an associated write command is received by the associated command control unit, said write command including the indication of the input queue that the packet data should be stored in.