Method and apparatus for transmitting cells across an ATM switch bus
First Claim
1. An apparatus having stored therein a tag coupled to a data cell for specifying a destination of said data cell transmitted on a data bus, said tag comprising:
- a module number field to indicate a module coupled to said data bus for receiving said data cell from said data bus;
a port number field to indicate a port coupled to said module for receiving said data cell from said module; and
a multicast group number field to indicate said module and said port for receiving said data cell.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The switch fabric of the ATM switch, i.e., the ATM switch backplane bus, switches a cell based on routing information provided by the source LAN or ATM module to an output port on a destination LAN or ATM module of the switching hub. In the described system, the ATM switch is preconfigured to provide a fully connected topology between ports of all modules. In one embodiment, ATM cells transmitted across the ATM switch fabric between a source LAN or ATM module and a destination LAN module, e.g., Token Ring, FDDI or Ethernet, is accomplished by way of a routing tag prepended on the ATM cells. The routing tag provides both unicast and multicast group destination information such that the ATM cells are routed to the appropriate port on a given destination module without the need to establish a virtual circuit between the source module and the destination module using VPI/VCIs.
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Citations
8 Claims
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1. An apparatus having stored therein a tag coupled to a data cell for specifying a destination of said data cell transmitted on a data bus, said tag comprising:
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a module number field to indicate a module coupled to said data bus for receiving said data cell from said data bus; a port number field to indicate a port coupled to said module for receiving said data cell from said module; and a multicast group number field to indicate said module and said port for receiving said data cell. - View Dependent Claims (2)
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3. An asynchronous transfer mode switch, hereafter referred to as an ATM switch, having stored therein a tag coupled to a cell for identifying a port on said ATM switch to which said cell is transmitted, said tag comprising:
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a first field having stored therein a first number identifying said port and a second number identifying a module associated with said port; and a second field having stored therein a third number identifying a plurality of ports.
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4. An asynchronous transfer mode switch, hereafter referred to as an ATM switch, having a backplane bus, a plurality of modules coupled thereto, each one of said plurality of modules having a plurality of ports, said ATM switch for processing a tag associated with a data cell transmitted on said backplane bus, wherein said tag comprises:
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a first field having stored therein a unicast number for identifying one of said plurality of ports and one of said plurality of modules; and a second field having stored therein a multicast group number for identifying at least one of said plurality of ports. - View Dependent Claims (5)
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6. In an asynchronous transfer mode switch, hereafter referred to as an ATM switch, a method of transmitting a data cell between a first module and a port on a second module, said first module and said second module coupled to a data bus comprising the steps of said first module:
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retrieving a routing tag from a table based on a destination address of said data cell, said routing tag comprising a first field having stored therein a first number indicating a module number and a port number, and a second field having stored therein a second number indicating a multicast group number; coupling said routing tag to said data cell; and
,transmitting said routing tag and said data cell on said data bus;
said second module;receiving said routing tag and said data cell from said data bus; and forwarding said data cell to said port based on said routing tag.
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7. An apparatus associated with a data communication network, said apparatus to store a tag associated with a data cell, said tag for indicating routing of said data cell in said data communication network, said apparatus comprising:
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a first entry to store a first field of said tag, said first field to indicate a first port associated with said data communication network and a module associated with said first port; and a second entry, coupled to said first entry, to store a second field of said tag, said second field to indicate a plurality of ports associated with said data communication network. - View Dependent Claims (8)
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Specification