The heap-sort based ATM cells spacer

After situating the spacing function within the context of a multiservices ATM network which carries both isochronous and non-isochronous flows, the paper presents a novel spacing device, based on the classical heap-sort algorithm. Two new aspects of this spacer are: firstly, it is theoretically optimal in complexity; by using log(N) pipelined controllers, the sorter embedded within this spacer is able to sort in a half cell time the N elements situated at the head of N connection related queues, and this is done without very high-speed logic; secondly, it can cope with both real-time services and non-real-time services by combining spacing and weighted fair queuing. Finally, some ATM switch structures making use of the proposed spacer are sketched.