Transparent bridging support in high speed interworking units

The High Performance Transparent Bridge (HPTB) architecture is described. The modula architecture of the HPTB is based on an internal switching component interconnecting various concurrently operating network attachment units. The bridge protocol entities are properly partitioned and performance critical tasks, such as management of the filtering database and buffer management, are provided with special hardware support. The HPTB is capable of concurrently bridging asynchronous, synchronous, and isochronous traffic among heterogeneous networks, including traditional frame-based networks, such as local area networks (LANs), and cell-based networks using asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology