EXTENSIBLE UNIVERSAL SWITCH FABRIC DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR BEING RE-USED ALTHOUGH A LINE CARD MOUNTING A NETWORK PROCESSOR SUPPORTING A CXIS INTERFACE IS REPLACED

摘要

PURPOSE: An extensible universal switch fabric device is provided to facilitate increasing of capacity by adding the same switch fabric module. CONSTITUTION: Queuing engine units(331-33n,341-34n) are CSIX(Common Switch Interface)-interfaced with network processors(311-31n,321-32n) mounted on line cards(351-35n,361-36n), are formed as respective modules physically independent from the line cards(351-35n), forward traffic transmitted from the network processors(311-31n,321-32n) to switching units(310,320), and transmit traffic outputted from the switching units(310,320) to the network processors(311-31n,321,32n). The switching units(310,320) switch traffic received by their input ports to each corresponding output port thereof. Back planes(371,372) provide interface between the queuing engine units(331-33n,341-34n) and the switching units(310,320).