Patent ID: 7830893

Claim:
A system for reassembling asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) data in real time, comprising: a circular buffer for storing ATM data, the ATM data comprising frames of information divided into ATM cells comprising at least one of virtual path identifier (VPI) information, virtual channel identifier (VCI) information and channel identifier (CID) information; and a content addressable memory configured to receive any of the VPI, VCI and CID information related to each ATM cell and configured to provide an index when particular VPI, VCI and CID information is identified, the index corresponding to unique VPI/VCI combinations for ATM Adaptation layer (AAL)2 cells and VPI/VCI+CID combinations for AAL 5 cells, wherein the index corresponding to each ATM cell is placed in the circular buffer in the context portion of the ATM cell; and a plurality of parallel processing elements configured to analyze the ATM cells, to determine a cell type using the index, and to determine the ATM adaptation layer (AAL) mode if any of each cell, wherein AAL2 cells and AAL 5 cells are reassembled in real-time into the frames of the ATM data.