FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of a switch module 300 configured to forward data items (e.g., data cells, data packets), including receiving data items at ingress ports (e.g., ingress ports 302), forwarding data items to egress ports (e.g., egress ports 304), and sending data items from egress ports, according to an embodiment. The switch module 300 can be a switch module in a switch fabric that is configured to redirect data (e.g., data cells, data packets) as it flows through the switch fabric. For example, the switch module 300 can be a first stage switch module 212, a second stage switch module 214, or a third stage switch module 216 in the switch fabric 200 shown and described with respect to FIG. 2. Furthermore, the switch module 300 can be an assembly of electronic components and circuitry, or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). As shown in FIG. 3, the switch module 300 includes multiple ingress ports 302, multiple egress ports 304, a processor 306 containing a schedule module 320, and a memory 308 containing schedule table 330 and schedule table 340. In some embodiments, the number of ingress ports 302 is the same as the number of egress ports 304. In some other embodiments, the number of ingress ports 302 and the number of egress ports 304 can be different.
