SWITCHING ARRANGEMENT AND METHOD WITH SEPARATED OUTPUT BUFFERS

The invention proposes a switching arrangement for transporting data packets which comprise a data packet destination information and a payload, to one or more output ports. The switching device is able to route the arriving data packets according to the data packet destination information, to at least one dedicated of the output ports. It comprises at each input port an input buffer with at least as many single input queues as there are output ports, and an input controller for each input port, serving for controlling the order of multiplexing the data packets from the input queues of the corresponding input buffer to the switching device. The total of input ports is divided up into several subsets of input ports. Each subset in the switching device has its separate output buffer for storing at addresses therein at least the payload of each data packet arriving at the input port. At least one set of as many output queues as the switching arrangement has output ports are arranged. In these output queues at least the address of each payload stored in the output buffer is stored, sorted according to the data packet destination information. The stored payload is then deliverable to its dedicated at least one output port under use of the stored addresses.