US Patent 7502319 Ethernet packet transmission apparatus and method

The Ethernet packet transmission apparatus includes: a packet transceiving unit for transceiving an Ethernet packet through a plurality of Ethernet ports; a MAC header processing unit for receiving the Ethernet packet and reading header information; a packet processing unit for receiving the Ethernet packet, classifying the received Ethernet packet on a service or destination basis, assigning a priority label to the classified Ethernet packet on a packet-by-packet basis, and outputting memory state information on the corresponding port; a congestion controlling unit for controlling a position in an output sequence of the Ethernet packet; and a signal processing unit for receiving and comparing the port state information and the memory state information and outputting either a memory control signal or a congestion control signal to control the packet processing unit and the congestion controlling unit.