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US 6,870,847 B2Granted
Scheme for merging partially filled ATM cells
AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.
InventorsDavid A. Hughes, Alan Saldinger
Life of this patent
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AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.
InventorsDavid A. Hughes, Alan Saldinger
Estimating the term…
First and second partially filled ATM cells are removed from a cell stream and merged into a third ATM cell. The third ATM cell may then be inserted back into the cell stream. The third ATM cell may include header information indicative of the number of partially filled ATM cells from which it was created. To accommodate these operations, a data communication device, such as an ATM switch, is configured to identify partially filled ATM cells within an ATM cell stream. The device is also configured to merge at least two of the partially filled ATM cells into a merged ATM cell and to insert the merged ATM cell back into the ATM cell stream. Identifying partially filled ATM cells may involve use of a lookup table stored in a computer readable medium and indexable using logical connection identification information. The scheme can be used on a link-by-link basis within an ATM network or across multiple hops within such a network for combining cells traveling along a common route. The scheme is not limited to combining information on the same virtual channel or information which travels only between a common source and destination.
A method for merging partially filled ATM cells, comprising the steps of:
An ATM network, comprising:
A method, comprising identifying partially filled ATM cells within an ATM cell stream according to a lookup table indexed by connection identification information indicating whether or not a connection includes partially filled ATM cells that can be merged, and merging two or more of the partially filled ATM cells into a fully packed ATM cell, wherein the fully packed ATM cell includes information indicative of the padding method used in the two or more partially filled ATM cells.
An ATM mode, comprising a cell merging apparatus configured to identify partially filled ATM cells within a cell stream according to lookup table indexed by connection identification information, merge two or more partially filled ATM cells into a third ATM cell, and to avoid cell out-of-order transmission within the cell stream and before a fully packed cell when VPIs/SCIs of the two or more partially filled ATM cells and a VCI/VPI of the fully packed ATM cell match.
An ATM mode, comprising a cell merging apparatus configured to identify partially filled ATM cells within a cell stream according to lookup table indexed by connection identification information, merge two or more partially filled ATM cells into a third ATM cell, and to construct the third ATM cell so that the third ATM cell includes information indicative of a padding method used for the partially filled ATM cells.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.