Switching device and a method for the configuration thereof

Abstract

A switching device and a method for the configuration thereof is disclosed. A first aspect of the present invention comprises a switching device. The switching device comprises at least one line card and at least one switching card. The device includes a mid-plane coupled to the at least one line card and the at least one switching card. The A second aspect of the invention comprises a method for configuring a switching device. The method for configuring a switching device comprises providing a mid-plane, and providing at least one switching card and at least one line card on the mid-plane. The at least one switching card and the at least one line card are perpendicular to each other. Through the use of the present invention, line cards and/or switch cards can be connected to a mid-plane via a plurality of connectors wherein the line cards and switching cards are perpendicular to each other. By utilizing this configuration, the need for the signals from the line card to the switching cards no longer need to cross each other. Additionally, the interconnections are short and can be implemented in a few layers. This results in the use of smaller interconnection boards that contain substantially less layers, thereby reducing the overall production costs.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.