500 is transmitted first and begins cell 501 the most significant bit msb of data frame 500 is transmitted last and ends cell 504 0038 fig6 illustrates n u00d7 n shared queuing switch 111 with two shared buffer banks and a frame assembly buffer according to one embodiment of the present invention shared queuing switch 111 comprises n input ports n output ports frame deserializer fd 605 frame assembly buffer 606 shared buffer 610 shared bank 611 shared bank 612 and frame serializer fs 615 timing in shared queuing switch 111 is synchronized over time slots shared buffer 610 provides the major buffer storage for shared queuing switch 111 shared buffer 610 is capable of writing a frame and reading a frame per time slot shared buffer 610 may be for example an internally buffered crossbar frame assembly buffer 606 is the buffer storage used in frame deserializer 605 for queuing frames before the frames can be forwarded to shared buffer 610 frame assembly buffer 606 is capable of writing n cells per time slot and reading an n cell frame per time slot it is assumed herein that frame serializer fs 615 serializes each frame to its destination output port from the least to the highest significant bits of data frame 500 cells arriving at switch 111 are assembled into frames by frame deserializer fd 605 in such a way as to satisfy the following conditions 1.