Importance

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Abstract

An integrated TDM-based/packet-based telecommunications backplane system includes a multi-bit backplane bus, a plurality of TDM data modules and packet based data modules coupled to the backplane bus, and a frame controller coupled to the bus which generates a frame by pre-assigning a first plurality of timeslots of a frame for the fixed rate TDM traffic, and allotting the remainder of the frame timeslots as a pool for packet-based traffic. The TDM data modules, which can include bit, and byte or nibble mode modules, place data on the backplane bus in their allotted time slots. The packet-based data modules contend for the pooled timeslots by raising a request on a 'request' thread of the backplane bus when the packet module has a packet to send, and dropping the request and raising a busy flag on the 'busy' thread while sending a data packet. In order to insure that only one packet-based data module will attempt to raise the request flag at a given time, the pooled timeslots are divided among the packet data sources for purposes of raising the request flag only. Thus, only one packet-based data module can raise its request flag during a given timeslot of the pool; although when sending data, the packet-based data module can send during all timeslots of the pool.

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First Claim