PACKET SWITCH DEVICE AND METHOD FOR DISTRIBUTING COPIES OF DATA PACKET TO A PLURALITY OF ADDRESSES

摘要

A high performance packet switching network (10) that can be used to provide voice data and video communication on a large scale is disclosed. The packet switching network has a broadcast capability which makes it suitable for applications including commercial television distribution and conferencing. The basic switching capability of the network is provided by a switching module (200) which is capable of producing a desired number of copies of a broadcast packet and routing the copied packets to desired destinations. A plurality of switching modules may be interconnected to form a packet switch (12-20). Interconnection circuitry is provided so that the number of interconnected switch modules may be varied with a minimum of recabling.