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Abstract

A high capacity digital non-blocking cross-connect switching fabric is realized by employing a multi-port RAM based space-time switch having a plurality of write circuits and a plurality of read circuits, each of which operates at a timing rate that is a prescribed fraction of the input/output clock rate of the input/output ports of the multi-port RAM based cross-connect switching fabric. The at least one multi-port RAM switch unit has a plurality of write circuits and a plurality of read circuits, each of which operates at a timing rate that is a prescribed fraction of the input/output clock rate of the input/output ports of the multi-port RAM based cross-connect switching fabric. Additionally, in one embodiment, each of the write circuits and each of the read circuits has independent and unrestricted access to all data storage positions in each of a plurality of storage units that make up the at least one multi-port RAM switch unit. Because the write circuits and each of the read circuits are operating at the prescribed fraction of the multi-port RAM switch unit input/output clock rate, a multi-port RAM based cross-connect switching fabric is realizable which has a significantly larger storage capacity that is accessible within a reasonable access time. In one embodiment of the invention, a plurality of multi-port RAM switch units is employed to realize a multi-port RAM based non-blocking cross-connect switching fabric. In a specific embodiment, the fractional write rate is exploited so that a plurality of input ports can be served by a single write circuit. In another embodiment, each write circuit is assigned exclusive access to a particular segment of the write address space that is different from that assigned to any other write circuit. Furthermore, since the read circuits are operating at a fraction of the output port clock rate, each of the read circuits can serve a plurality of output ports by delivering read signal elements from the multi-port RAM switch unit to the output ports in a round robin fashion. Additionally, in another embodiment of the invention, each read circuit is assigned exclusive access to a particular segment of the read address space that is different from that assigned to any other read circuit. Consequently, the capacity of the multi-port RAM based cross-connect switching fabric is markedly increased.

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First Claim