Telecommunications and data communications switching apparatus and method

摘要

To perform non-blocking cross connections in a high data rate switch operative for switching a synchronous data stream where the data is arranged in groups, the bits of the data groups are spread into subsets of one or more bits and the subsets switched individually across lower bit rate switches. At the destination the subsets are recombined. The bit spreader and recombiner may be arranged on the switch card or at the source and destination interfaces respectively. A protection switch can provide 1:N protection and an XOR function can be incorporated with the protection switch to provide 1:N protection without signalling from the destination interface to the source interface.