US Patent 7284111 Integrated multidimensional sorter

A technique to implement an integrated multidimensional sorter (306) is to store data such that it may be retrieved in a sorted fashion. Entries are stored (407) into a memory according to time stamp value, and the time stamp value is divided (412) into multiple portions. The memory is organized as a pointer memory (505, 508, 513, and 520). An integrated multidimensional sorter may be implemented using integrated circuit technology using one or more integrated circuits (306). These integrated circuits may be used in management of network traffic, and provides quality of service (QoS) control.