Authors

Massoud R Hashemi, Alberto Leon-Garcia

Publication date

1997/12/2

Conference

1997 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Broadband Switching Systems Proceedings, IEEE BSS'97. Workshop Theme'Switching Systems for the Broadband Internet and for QoS on Demand'(Cat. No. 97TH8352)

Pages

155-163

Publisher

IEEE

Description

A generic hardware solution is introduced for switching variable-length packets. The switch can be used in a multiprotocol environment including IP and ATM protocols. In this architecture the packets and/or cells are stored in a shared RAM memory as the main storage resource in the switch, and similar to RAM-based, shared-buffer ATM switch, for each packet a fixed-length minicell is given to a queue controller which provides queueing and scheduling. A bank of sequencer circuits can be used as the controller. We introduce a new version of the single-queue switch, as a compact controller to replace the bank of sequencers with a single sequencer, with the same speed and size. Fair queueing scheduling is implemented by the controller. Other schemes can also be implemented using the sequencer circuit, such as priority queueing. Plug-in modules handle the link and network (routing) protocols. Therefore, these …