SLICED COMPARISON ENGINE ARCHITECTURE AND METHOD FOR A LAN SWITCH

摘要

A packet switching device (100) having a central shared memory (130) and a number of medium access controllers (110a, 110n) each coupled to a communications medium to exchange data packets therewith, and a controller (120) coupled to each medium access controller (110a, 110n) via a data path to exchange data packets with the media access controller (110a, 110n). The controller (120) has a number of data path controllers each connected to each medium access controller (110a, 110n) via a separate and like portion of the data path (111a, 114a) to exchange a corresponding portion of the data packets with the medium access controller (110a, 110n). The data path controllers each have a number of buffers each connected to one of the medium access controllers to which the data path controller is connected, to hold the portion of the data packets exchanged with the corresponding medium access controller (110a, 110n). Each data path controller has a selector that selects the buffer from which to transmit or receive the portion of the data packets with the central shared memory (130) and control logic (160) that controls the selector to concurrently select the buffer corresponding to the same medium access controller (110a, 110n).