Scalable switching fabric

A switch fabric, comprises:

• a first plurality of data switches each having a plurality of input ports and a plurality of output ports the plurality of switches capable of switching any of its input ports to any of its output ports, the plurality of data switches, comprises:
• a plurality of virtual queues;
• input segment logic coupled to at least one bus, said input segment logic to determine to which virtual queue incoming data should be sent;
• output segment logic to select which virtual queue should be connected to an output port;
• and
• a distributed switching arrangement to provide a non-blocking cross-bar switching fabric arrangement capability over a series of byte sliced buses, the distributed switching arrangement coupling the virtual queues to the output segment logic through the non-blocking cross-bar switching arrangement, the non-blocking cross-bar switching fabric arrangement capability comprising a plurality of multiplexers coupled to the outputs of the plurality of the virtual queues to select ones of the virtual queues to feed to a second plurality of multiplexers that produce inputs to the output segment logic;
• said plurality of data switches having inputs coupled to a plurality of input buses so that a first byte of a first one of the input buses is coupled to a first one of the plurality of switches, and a succeeding byte of the first input bus is coupled to a succeeding one of the plurality of switches.

A switch fabric comprises:

• a first data switch having a plurality of inputs and outputs;
• a second data switch having a plurality of inputs and outputs, each data switch, comprises:
• a plurality of virtual queues;
• input segment logic coupled to at least one bus, said input segment logic to determine to which virtual queue incoming data should be sent;
• output segment logic to select which virtual queue should be connected to an output port;
• and
• a distributed switching arrangement to provide a non-blocking cross-bar switching fabric arrangement capability over a series of byte sliced buses, the distributed switching arrangement coupling the virtual queues to the output segment logic through the non-blocking cross-bar switching arrangement, the non-blocking cross-bar switching fabric arrangement capability comprising a plurality of multiplexers coupled to the outputs of the plurality of the virtual queues to select ones of the virtual queues to feed to a second plurality of multiplexers that produce inputs to the output segment logic,
• wherein the distributed switching arrangement has the inputs of the first and second data switches coupled to a plurality of input buses so that a first byte of a first one of the buses is coupled to the first switch, and a last byte of the first bus is coupled to the second switch.