A multipath self-routing switch

The switching technology, the associated distributed control architecture, and the performance of the multipath self-routing (MPSR) group switching network are discussed. The MPSR group switching network is a folded three-stage multiplane structure smoothly expandable by stage or plane additions as required for capacity or throughput increase, respectively. The transport equipment, including its embedded distributed control processors, is implemented in a number of identical racks, each rack terminating 256 asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) links at 155 MB/s. The equipment configuration can grow up to 64 racks, for a capacity of 16 K ATM links. It is shown that the multipath, self-routing technique associated with a multislot cell transfer mode reduces the switching element complexity and allows for the realization of all of its functions in a single-chip integrated switching element (ISE) of a relatively large size. Results are presented on the ISE buffer size engineering for a 10/sup -10/ overall through-switch cell loss ratio based on analytical methods verified by extensive simulations, on the derived total cell transfer delay, and on the engineering of the output buffer capacity. >