Fabric access node integrated circuit configured to bound cell reorder buffer depth

摘要

Bounding cell reorder depth is disclosed. It is determined whether a reorder buffer exceeds a depth limit. If the reorder buffer exceeds the depth limit, backpressure is sent with respect to a source associated with the reorder buffer by including in a cell being sent into a switch fabric with which the reorder buffer is associated source based backpressure information stored in a location in the cell that is normally used by the switch fabric to send information to ports associated with the switch fabric and normally is not used by the ports when sending cells into the switch fabric.