Patent ID: 7756131

Claim:
A packet forwarding system comprising: a packet processor organizing and processing data to be transferred into packets; a packet memory storing the packets; a plurality of interfaces respectively transferring the packets stored in the packet memory depending on destinations of the packets; and a packet forwarding manager managing packet information to transfer the packets through the plurality of the interfaces, respectively, and controlling a transfer of each of the packets through a corresponding interface of the plurality of the interfaces by reading out packet information before the packet forwarding, wherein the packet forwarding manager comprises: a forwarding buffer having a structure of a virtual transmission (TX) queue wherein each entry in a physical structure of the virtual TX queue has a field representing link information, and wherein the forward buffer buffers the packet information separately for each of the plurality of the interfaces in a forwarding order of the packets; a forwarding confirmer confirming packet forwarding of each of the plurality of the interfaces depending on the packet information, and generating a forwarding termination signal when any one of the plurality of the interfaces completes the packet forwarding; and a forwarding controller controlling a transfer of the packets by reading out from the forwarding buffer the packet information for a next packet to be transferred through the interface which completes the forwarding according to the generated forwarding termination signal and sending the read packet information to the forwarding confirmer, wherein the forwarding controller uses a head pointer pointing to a storage location of each of the packet information to be transferred initially through the plurality of the interfaces respectively and a tail pointer pointing to a storage location of each of the packet information to be transferred last so as to independently output the packet information stored in the forwarding buffer through the plurality of the interfaces so that the output of the packet information is processed in parallel separately from the packet forwarding to enhance forwarding efficiency of the packets, wherein the forwarding confirmer comprises a plurality of output buffers respectively corresponding to the plurality of the interfaces, for storing, temporarily, the packet information which is read from the forwarding buffer.