A Multipurpose Switch Fabric with Dynamic Link Multiplex Technology

A new design method of building a multipurpose switch fabric with dynamic gigaspeed link multiplex technology is presented through analyzing switch fabric and the processing of frame forwarding in switch ASIC. The hardware designing problem how to combine multi-purpose such as firewall in the traditional switch is solved. The principle is that the firewall card and line cards share the link which link switch card through the cross-point switch. This link can be configed by CPU and changed dynamically, so it can carry out parallel communication. The results of tested pattern prove that this designing is correct.