Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Switching a message which includes an address header
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-03
2002-01-29
Vu, Huy D. (Department: 2735)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Switching a message which includes an address header
C370S413000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06343077
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an UTOPIA switching device for a braodband switching system, especially to a stackable UTOPIA switching device (USD) for an ATM switch which can be arranged as a tree-like hierarchy for connecting to multiple digital subscriber lines (DSL).
B. Description of the Prior Art
With the advantages of high transmission speed and stable QoS, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) backbone has been a promising solution for high bandwidth transmission, such as asymmetrical digital subscriber line (ADSL) or Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL). A conventional ATM switch
11
usually resides in a distribution point
10
of an ATM network system, such as a central office of a local telephone service provider, as illustrated in FIG.
1
. The ATM switch
11
will transmit data to/from the user's terminal
15
via the ATM backbone
16
from/to the ATM networks
17
. The user's terminal
15
, usually referred to as customer premise equipment (CPE), has a point-to-point connection to the user's premises ADSL MODEM
13
via the twisted copper wire pair customer line
14
. Each ADSL MODEM
13
has a point-to-point connection to a high speed digital port
12
of an ATM switch
11
. Since a high speed digital port
12
of an ATM switch
11
is very expensive and each digital port
12
is dedicated to an ADSL line, it makes the entire ATM switch
11
very expensive.
Moreover, the architecture of an ATM switch
11
is based on a fully-connected topology or a bus-like topology. The switch circuit for supporting fully-connected topology is complicated and expensive, especially when the number of ADSL users increases. The current technology of a switch circuit for supporting bus-line topology, on the other hand, can connect to 16 ADSL lines at the most, which is not enough for a large network system.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a stackable UTOPIA Switching device for the ATM switch which is easy to implement and can be arranged in a tree-like hierarchy for connecting to multiple ADSL lines, thereby to reduce the cost of an ATM switch.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a stackable switching device for an ATM switch which can be easily adapted to devices that supports UTOPIA interfaces.
In accordance with the present invention, the preferred embodiment of the present invention mainly includes a stackable UTOPIA switching device for use in an Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch. The inventive UTOPIA switching device can be easily arranged in a tree-like hierarchy to connect to multiple ADSL lines. A single UTOPIA switching device can connect to 4 ADSL transceivers. The UTOPIA switching device comprises an Up-link end and a down-link end. The down-link end can connect to 31 slave multiplexers or physical layers at the most. The up-link end can connect to a master USD or a slave USD. Both the up-link end and the down-link end have three input queues and one output queue for buffering the ATM cells. The ATM cells are buffered in the three input queues and the output queues in an order controlled by a priority queuing logic circuit. Additionally, a translation RAM can be added for looking up a new VCI/VPI in a table to replace the VCI/VPI field in the header of the cells. With the stackable architecture and the simplicity in the circuit design, the cost on the hardware-level implementation of an ATM switch can be successfully reduced.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5754941 (1998-05-01), Sharpe et al.
patent: 5809025 (1998-09-01), Timbs
patent: 5999518 (1999-12-01), Nattkemper et al.
patent: 6034950 (2000-03-01), Sauer et al.
patent: 6049541 (2000-04-01), Kerns et al.
patent: 6058114 (2000-05-01), Sethuram et al.
patent: 6081519 (2000-06-01), Petler
patent: 6157614 (2000-12-01), Pasternak et al.
Cheng Dennis
Chin Charles Changli
Li Jian-Cheng
Institute for Information Industry
Jones Prenell
Nath&Associates PLLC
Novick Harold L.
Vu Huy D.
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