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US 8,576,839 B2Granted
Cascaded contention-free switch modules with interleaved consolidation units
OwnerMaged E. Beshaiinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A scalable router-switch comprises a plurality of switch units each having consolidation means for data disassembling and reassembling. The switch units are arranged into switch modules and the switch units of each switch module are interconnected through a dual rotator to form a contention-free temporal mesh.
Claims17
A switching node comprising:
- a plurality of contention-free switch modules, each having a shared memory device, m inlets, and m outlets, m>1, each inlet having cyclic exclusive access to said shared memory device and each outlet having cyclic exclusive access to said shared memory device, said switch modules arranged into:
- m primary switch modules;
- m secondary switch modules;
- and
- m ternary switch modules;
- and
- a plurality of consolidation units arranged into:
- a set of primary consolidation units, each connected to a respective inlet of one of said primary switch modules and configured to:
- receive data segments destined to outlets of at least one ternary switch module;
- and
- assemble said data segments into primary data blocks each containing at most m data segments;
- a set of secondary consolidation units each connecting a respective primary switch module to one of said secondary switch modules and configured to:
- disassemble primary data blocks switched through said respective primary switch module into constituent data segments;
- and
- reassemble said constituent data segments into secondary data blocks each containing at most m data segments destined to outlets of only one ternary switch module;
- and
- a set of ternary consolidation units each connecting a respective secondary switch module to a respective ternary switch module and configured to:
- disassemble secondary data blocks switched through said respective secondary switch module into component data segments;
- and
- reassemble said component data segments into ternary data blocks each containing at most m data segments destined to only one outlet of said respective ternary switch module.
17 more elements
A switching node comprising:
- a plurality of switch modules each switch module configured to switch data blocks without contention, said each switch module comprising:
- a shared memory device;
- a plurality of inlets;
- and
- a plurality of outlets;
- a plurality of consolidation units, each consolidation unit preceding a respective inlet among said plurality of inlets and having a consolidation memory device;
- said switch modules arranged into a first array, a second array, and a third array wherein:
- each switch module of said first array has channels individually directed to each switch module of said second array;
- and
- each switch module of said second array has channels individually directed to each switch module of said third array;
- each consolidation unit preceding an inlet of a switch module of said first array forms primary data blocks each containing data segments directed to any outlet of any switch module of said third array;
- each consolidation unit preceding an inlet of a switch module of said second array forms secondary data blocks each containing data segments directed to a single switch module of said third array;
- and
- each consolidation unit preceding an inlet of a switch module of said third array forms ternary data blocks each containing data segments directed to a single outlet of a switch module of said third array.
11 more elements
A method of data switching comprising:
- receiving at ingress ports data packets from data sources;
- segmenting said data packets into data segments of equal sizes;
- assembling said data segments into primary data blocks each containing multiple data segments;
- switching said primary data blocks through a first array of contention-free switch modules to produce first-switched data blocks;
- disassembling said first-switched data blocks and reassembling resulting data segments into first-rearranged data blocks each containing data segments destined for egress ports of a switch module of a third array of contention-free switch modules;
- switching said first-rearranged data blocks through a second array of contention-free switch modules to produce second-switched data blocks;
- disassembling said second-switched data blocks and reassembling resulting data segments into second-rearranged data blocks each containing data segments destined for a single egress port;
- switching said second-rearranged data blocks through said third array of contention-free switch modules to produce third-switched data blocks;
- deconstructing said third-switched data blocks into constituent data segments;
- and
- assembling said constituent data segments into respective data packets.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.