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Fiber channel switch employing distributed queuing

  • US 5,894,481 A
  • Filed: 09/11/1996
  • Issued: 04/13/1999
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/11/1996
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A fibre channel switch for interconnecting a plurality of devices, each device having a node port, such that frames of data originating from a source port having a source node port may be transferred through the fibre channel switch to a destination device having a destination node port in accordance with a distributed source and destination queuing algorithm, comprising:

  • a plurality of fabric ports, each fabric port coupled to a different device through corresponding source or destination node port,a plurality of port controllers, each port controller located on a different fabric port, each port controller further comprising the distributed source and destination queuing algorithm for queuing frames sourced or destined from a device, or to, itself, and wherein, each port controller operates independently of the queuing of frames by any other port controller,a control network for communicating timing and destination commands between each port controller corresponding to when and where frame transfers are to be made,a bit-sliced shared memory having a common pool of memory buffers,a shared memory controller coupled to each port controller, for bit-slicing data and memory addresses being transmitted between the port controllers and the shared memory, wherein data and destination addresses are transferred to and from the shared memory, the bit-sliced shared memory being coupled to each fabric port through the shared memory controller, wherein each fabric port can access the shared memory directly.

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