Flow control in a distributed scalable, shared memory switching fabric system

A method of controlling traffic flow across a switching fabric, comprising:

• associating a plurality of write counters with a respective plurality of destinations;
• sending a first cell associated with a first destination of the plurality of destinations;
• incrementing a first write counter associated with the first destination;
• receiving a flow control message (FCM) including a first read count;
• and
• decrementing the first write counter in accordance with the first read count.

A traffic flow control system, comprising:

• a switching fabric, including:
• a plurality of queues, configured to facilitate the queuing of cells, respectively associated with a plurality of write counters representing a number of cells enqueued in the plurality of queues and a plurality of read counters representing a number of cells dequeued from the plurality of queues;
• a flow control aggregation unit, coupled to the plurality of queues, configured to:
• increment a first read counter of the plurality of read counters when a first cell is dequeued from a first queue of the plurality of queues, wherein the first read counter is associated with the first queue;
• and
• create a flow control message (FCM) using the first read counter;
• and
• a scheduling module configured to schedule the FCM for transmission from the switching fabric.