Patent ID: 7352694

Claim:
A method for tolerating data line faults in a packet communications switch fabric, the method comprising: accepting information packets including a plurality of cells, at a plurality of ingress port card ports, the plurality of information packets addressing a plurality of egress port card ports; selectively connecting port card ports to port card backplane data links; selectively connecting port card backplane data links and crossbars by fixedly connecting each port card to a corresponding interface of an assigned crossbar, for a particular backplane data link, as follows: establishing a first plurality of crossbar input ports and a first plurality of crossbar output ports; establishing a fourth plurality of switchplane banks per backplane; establishing a seventh plurality of switchplanes per switchplane bank; establishing a fifth plurality of switch cards per switchplane; and, establishing a third plurality of crossbars per switch card; and, selectively enabling the connection to each crossbar; sensing a connection fault in a backplane data link as follows: each crossbar monitoring cells received on the backplane data links; and, a crossbar supplying an error message to a port card in response to the received cells on a connected backplane data link exceeding an error threshold; in response to receiving the error message, the port card reselecting a backplane data link; in response to reselecting connections between the port card ports and the port card backplane data links, serially transferring packets through the port cards; and, serially transferring packets through the crossbars to the egress port cards.