Apparatus and method for bandwidth control

摘要

The present invention provides an apparatus and method for bandwidth control used in a network switch controller. The apparatus and method achieve the goals of simplifying circuits and controlling bandwidth precisely by simplification of counting operations required by bandwidth control and a design of dual counters. The apparatus comprises: a first counter; a control logic for executing a operation of adding or subtracting the first counter by one based on an increment/decrement signal and for determining if a packet is allowed to enter a queue of the switch controller based on a value of the first counter; an action device for performing actions of inputting/outputting the packet to/from the queue, wherein the action device comprises a second counter which is increased by one when a byte is inputted, the second counter is reset to zero and generates the increment signal to the control logic when increased to one unit bytes; and a timer for generating the decrement signal to the control logic every unit time. The method employs the above apparatus to input packets and decreases the first counter by one to limit data volume allowed to input during one unit time to one unit bytes.