Switch and/or router unit

Abstract

Briefly, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a system includes: shared memory. The system includes the capability to transfer to a router processing unit a fragment of a received frame and a pointer to the fragment in shared memory. Briefly, in accordance with another embodiment of the invention, a method of transferring a fragment of a received frame includes the following. The received frame and the byte length of a fragment of the received frame are stored in shared memory. The fragment of the received frame having the byte length indicated and a pointer to the location of the fragment in shared memory are transferred. Briefly, in accordance with yet another embodiment of the invention, a switch-router includes at least one integrated circuit. The at least one integrated circuit includes the capability, alone or in combination with one or more other integrated circuits, to transfer to a router processing unit a fragment of a received frame and a pointer to the location of the fragment in a shared memory.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.