Patent ID: 6959002

Claim:
A traffic manager for a network switch port for storing incoming cells derived from network data transmissions in a cell memory and for thereafter forwarding each cell from the cell memory, wherein each cell includes data referencing a forwarding resource to receive and forward the cell forwarded from the cell memory, the traffic manager comprising: first means for assigning each cell stored in the cell memory to one of a plurality of flow queues (FQs) such that only cells including data referencing the same forwarding resource are assigned to the same FQ, each flow queue being identified by a separate flow queue identification number (FQ ID); a plurality of virtual output queues (VOQs), each associated with a separate forwarding resource; second means for periodically loading each flow queue's FQ ID into the VOQ associated with the forwarding resource referenced by the data included in the cells assigned to that flow queue, and for periodically removing an FQ ID from each VOQ whenever the VOQ contains at least one FQ; and third means for storing each incoming cell in the cell memory, for receiving each FQ ID the second means removes from any of the VOQs and, when the cell memory stores a cell assigned to any received FQ ID, for responding to the received FQ ID by forwarding that cell from the cell memory.