The present invention provides systems and methods for providing
data transmission speeds at or in excess of 10 gigabits per second between one or more source devices and one or more destination devices. According to one embodiment, the
system of the present invention comprises a first and second
media access control (MAC) interfaces to facilitate
receipt and transmission of packets over an associated set of physical interfaces. The
system also contemplates a first and second field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) coupled to the MAC interfaces and an associated first and second memory structures, the first and second FPGAs are configured to perform initial
processing of packets received from the first and second MAC interfaces and to schedule the transmission of packets to the first and second MAC interface for transmission to one or more destination devices. The first and second FPGAs are further operative to dispatch and retrieve packets to and from the first and second memory structures. A third FPGA, coupled to the first and second memory structures and a
backplane, is operative to retrieve and dispatch packets to and from the first and second memory structures, compute appropriate destinations for packets and organize packets for transmission. The third FPGA is further operative to receive and dispatch packets to and from the
backplane.