Patent ID: 8170035

Claim:
A network bridging device comprising: a first network interface to receive a data frame from a first network having a source protocol, wherein the data frame includes one or more routing control bits to be used to determine if the data frame is either a pass-through frame or an internal frame, wherein the one or more routing control bits are located in a programmable location of a data frame header that allow support for one or more different protocols; a memory coupled to said first network interface; a processor coupled to the memory; and, a circuit coupled to the first network interface and the memory, the circuit sending a transmit notification to the processor while storing the data frame in the memory; wherein the processor begins reading the data frame from the memory in response to the transmit notification and prior to the receipt of the entire data frame, and translates the data frame from the source protocol to a destination protocol; a second network interface coupled to said processor for transmitting the translated data frame to a second network, wherein one of the first or second network is a packet-over SONET Physical Layer (POS/PHY) network, wherein receiving and transmitting operations in the network bridging device overlap to reduce frame latency, and wherein the processor translates the data frame from the source protocol to the destination protocol and causes transmission of the translated data frame to begin while an original data frame's payload is being received, and wherein the overlap is enabled on a frame by frame basis.