Abstract: The cell switching architecture of the present invention uses at least one earliest deadline first (EDF) queue for each of the output ports in a cell switch so that no two output ports have a common earliest-deadline-first queue. Cells are arranged in each EDF queue according to deadline, but each EDF queue only contains cells for a single destination output port. Each input port also has an input queue with an EDF queue for each of the output ports, and each EDF queue arranges the cells for a single output port. Many equivalent cells may be represented by a single EDF queue entry, enabling large buffer capacity to be supported by small EDF queues. The architecture provides a method for switching cells between a plurality of input ports and a plurality of output ports. Cells are accepted from input ports into a plurality of corresponding input queues. Cells are sorted into groups according to the destination output port such that each group includes cells destined for a single output port.