Patent ID: 7072997

Claim:
A method for maintaining throughput in a data element, comprising the steps of: receiving in a switch a clock and a plurality of instances of data having a first width on an input, wherein the switch comprises at least one physical layer device, at least one media independent interface, and at least one media access controller; processing consecutive ones of the plurality of instances of data having the first width to produce more than one of a plurality of instances of data having a second width wherein the second data width are equivalent to the first data width and the more than one of the plurality of instances of data having the second data width are used to produce a plurality of instances of data having a third data width wherein the third data width are greater than the second data width and the plurality of instances of data having the third data width are used to produce a plurality of instances of data having an output data width wherein the output data width are equivalent to the third data width; and transmitting the plurality of instances of data having the output data width.