Patent attributes
The invention provides an improved architecture for credit based flow control. Briefly, the memory space within the receiving switch is separated into two parts, a statically allocated portion and a dynamically allocated portion. Packets are first placed in the dynamically allocated portion, and the credits are returned immediately. When the dynamically allocated portion has no additional space, the packets are then stored in the memory portion statically allocated to the specific virtual circuit. Credits are returned when the packets are removed from the statically allocated memory portion. This scenario allows the immediate return of credits when there is space available in the dynamically allocated memory portion. It also allows improved sharing of the overall memory since more of the overall memory can be made available to a particular virtual circuit.
