GIGAswitch System: A High-performance Packet-switching Platform

The GIGAswitch system is a high-performance packet-switching platform built on a 36-port 100 Mb/s crossbar switching fabric. The crossbar is data link independent and is capable of making 6.25 million connections per second. Digital's first GIGAswitch system product uses 2-port FDDI line cards to construct a 22-port IEEE 802.1d FDDI bridge. The FDDI bridge implements distributed forwarding in hardware to yield forwarding rates in excess of 200,000 packets per second per port. The GIGAswitch system is highly available and provides robust operation in the presence of overload.