Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

The invention relates to a switching network which operates in accordance with the asynchronous transfer mode and which comprises a switching unit (1), which is provided to change selected contents in the header field of a cell. For the complete transfer of the contents of a header field when specific data of the header field in the switching unit (1) are changed, a pre-processing circuit (2, 8) is coupled to each input of the switching unit (1, 10), and a post-processing circuit (3, 9) is coupled to each output of the switching unit (1, 10), upon the arrival of a cell, which is assigned to a specific virtual connection, each pre-processing circuit (2, 8) is provided to store the selected contents of the header field of the cell in an associated table if no entry is stored in connection with this virtual connection or if the stored entry deviates from the selected contents of the header field, a table is assigned to each post-processing circuit (3, 9), which table is provided to store the selected contents supplied by a pre-processing circuit (2, 8) which is associated with a virtual connection, and after the reception of a cell associated with a specific virtual connection, a post-processing circuit (3, 9) is provided to replace a selected contents of the header field of this cell by entering this virtual connection into the associated table.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim