ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE CELL PROCESSING SYSTEM WITH SCOREBOARD SCHEDULING

摘要

Methods and apparatus for processing cells in an asynchronous transfer mode communication system. A group of bits comprises a primary scoreboard indicative of the scheduling status for cell time slots in a periodic container of cells, with each bit indicating the availability of a corresponding cell time slot. A connection identifier table is maintained with each location in the table corresponding to one of the cell time slots and thus a single primary scoreboard bit. A cell scheduling instruction specifies a connection ID for a virtual connection on an ATM transmission link (120). A processor searches the primary scoreboard until a bit corresponding to an available cell time slot is located (126), reserves the located cell slot by setting the corresponding bit (128), and stores the connection ID in the corresponding location in the connection ID table (130).