Patent ID: 8223759

Claim:
A switch comprising: a plurality of switch units arranged into 2×m combinations, m being an integer greater than 1, each combination including m switch units and each combination intersecting m other combinations; a plurality of rotating-access memory devices, each rotating-access memory device exclusively connecting to a respective combination of switch units for providing contention-free paths for data blocks sent from any switch unit to any other switch unit within said respective combination of switch units; and a distributed-control system for connection set-up from any switch unit to any other switch unit in said plurality of switch units, said distributed-control system comprising: a plurality of switch-unit controllers with one switch-unit controller communicatively coupled to each switch unit; and a plurality of combination controllers each combination controller communicatively coupled to switch-unit controllers of a particular combination of switch units; said one switch-unit controller: receives a connection request; selects a preferred combination controller; forwards said connection request to said preferred combination controller; logically sorts data segments held in a switch-unit memory of said each switch unit according to destination switch units; and logically collates sorted data segments to form data blocks; said each combination controller: receives a connection request from a switch-unit controller; and reserves a path through a rotating-access memory device connecting to said particular combination of switch units.