Abstract: An ATM-switch for high transmission rates is built of primary switch cores. A path for a cell through the switch is determined at the arrival of the cell at the switch and this path is coded as a control word, which is transferred through the switch in parallel to the cell itself. The control word indicates directly how the transfer through each primary element of the switch is to be made. Each primary element must only have two inputs and two outputs. The control word then consists of one bit for every stage of primary switch elements in the switch and this bit indicates directly the output from which the cell is to be forwarded from a considered switch element. The switch cores are constructed of intermediate storage memories, one for each pair of one input and one output, and these intermediate storage memories can have a rather limited capacity for storing only a few cells together with their associated control words.