A novel address pointer switch architecture for variable length packets

The various switch architectures have been proposed to switch the variable length packets between input and output port in recent Internet environments. The conventional switch architectures have considered two approaches to employ ATM switching fabric, i.e., An original packet segmentation/reassemble and reserve buffers at the cross point in the switching fabric. However, these add overhead time to the system. In this paper, we propose a new switch architecture, named APS (address pointer switch), which has separated the data memory plane and the address pointer switching plane. The original packet will be stored on the separated memory structure and simultaneously only the memory address pointers will be forwarded through the switching fabric. The small mini packets that carry address pointers and basic forwarding information will be passed through the address pointer switching fabric. It is possible to achieve remarkable switching performance compared to other switch fabrics with contending variable length packets.