Patent ID: 7742486

Claim:
A switching device configured to communicatively connect one of a plurality of input transceivers to one of a plurality of output transceivers, the switching device comprising: a crosspoint matrix having a plurality of inputs for receiving variable-sized packets from respective input transceivers and a plurality of outputs; a plurality of output queues, each output queue coupled to all of the plurality of outputs of the crosspoint matrix and to an input of a respective one of the output transceivers, each output queue configured to simultaneously store overlapping portions of two or more variable-sized packets output from two or more outputs of the crosspoint matrix; and a scheduler to schedule the variable-sized packets across the crosspoint matrix, wherein the scheduler allocates a connection time for each variable-sized packet that excludes packet tails, and wherein the output queues absorb collisions between variable-sized packets by simultaneously storing overlapping portions of two or more packets output from two or more outputs of the crosspoint matrix.