Transaction selector employing transaction queue group priorities in multi-port switch

• US 7,990,989 B2
• Filed: 09/16/2006
• Issued: 08/02/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ARM Finance Overseas Limited (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: MIPS Technologies Incorporated (Wave Computing, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jensen, Michael Gottlieb
• Primary Examiner(s): Sheikh, Ayaz R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Weidner, Timothy J
• Application Number:
  US11/532,523
• Publication Number:
  US 20080069130A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,781 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/412
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/50 Queue scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/6215 Individual queue per QOS, rate or priority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/6225 Fixed service order, e.g. Round Robin
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/205 Quality of Service based
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/254 Centralised controller, i.e. arbitration or scheduling

Abstract

An apparatus for selecting one of a plurality of transaction queues from which to transmit a transaction out of a port of a switch. The apparatus includes a group indicator, for each of the queues, for indicating which one of a plurality of groups of the queues the queue belongs to. The apparatus also includes a group priority indicator, for each group of the plurality of groups, for indicating a priority of the group, the priority indicating a priority for transmitting transactions of the queues of the group relative to other groups of the plurality of groups. The apparatus includes selection logic, coupled to the group indicators and the priority indicators, configured to select a queue of the queues, for transmitting out of the port a transaction thereof, based on the group indicators and the group priority indicators.

Claims

1. A switch, comprising:

a network; and

a plurality of ports, each coupled to receive transactions from others of said plurality of ports via said network, each of said ports comprising;

a port interface, configured to transmit said transactions to a device coupled to said port;

N transaction queues configured to receive said transactions from said network, wherein each of the N transaction queues belongs to one of G groups, each of the G groups having a group priority for transmitting transactions relative to other groups, the group priority being one of P group priorities; and

a transaction selector, coupled to said port interface and to said N transaction queues, configured to select a particular transaction queue of the N transaction queues, for transmitting a transaction out of the port interface, the transaction selector comprising;

G round-robin generators, corresponding to the respective ones of the G groups, each round robin generator having N bits corresponding to the N transaction queues, configured to receive an indication corresponding to a last one of the N transaction queues selected for transmitting out the port at a corresponding one of the G groups, and configured to generate an N bit vector based on round robin logic and the received indication;

N G-input muxes, each coupled to receive a corresponding one of the generated N bits from each of the G round-robin generators, each mux configured to select for output one of the received G bits based on the corresponding transaction queue group priority; and

selection logic, configured to receive a transaction from each of the N transaction queues and to select for transmitting out of the port interface one of said N transactions based on a determined transmit value for each transaction queue,

wherein the transmit value of each respective transaction queue is based on the output of the N G-input muxes, a value corresponding to whether the transaction corresponding to each transaction queue is transmittable, and the group priority of the group to which each respective transaction queue belongs.

2. The switch as recited in claim 1, wherein said network comprises a cross-bar network.

3. The switch as recited in claim 1, wherein said transaction selector for at least two of said plurality of ports of the switch is configured to prescribe a different policy for selecting the plurality of transaction queues for transaction transmission than other of said plurality of ports.

4. The switch of claim 1, further comprising priority setting logic configured to set a priority of one of the N transaction queues based on a characteristic of a port associated with the transaction queue.

5. The switch of claim 4 wherein the characteristic of the port comprises a quality-of-service requirements of the port.

6. The switch of claim 4 wherein the characteristic of the port comprises a type of device to which the port is connected.

7. The switch of claim 4 wherein the characteristic of the port comprises a bandwidth requirement of the port.