摘要 |
A method for switching synchronous transfer mode cells in a circuit emulated ATM switch using a layered protocol model. Each cell is delivered to the circuit emulated ATM switch on a frame oriented basis and each such cell comprises a header and a payload. The header comprises fields storing details about the cell. The payload comprises time slots carrying user data. The ATM switch is provided with means for assigning a predetermined number of time slots to a cell that is transported on a physical medium. The cell, referred to as a PR-PDU-cell, can have any of a number of sizes ranging from 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 56 and 60 octets. This reduces the packetizing time of a cell. |