Interleaved Multistage Switching Fabric for Scalable High Performance Routers

Washington State University researchers have invented a novel architecture for improving the performance and reliability of a router. Using an interleaved multistage switching fabric, this architecture creates a faster router, which is scalable and has greater fault tolerance.

The invention is directed to a router switching fabric. The term "switching fabric" refers to a router's elements that connect input ports to output ports. Thus, the switching fabric directs data from one port to another, and significantly affects router performance.

The inventive switching fabric includes at least two "panels" of switching elements connected in parallel. Data is recirculated among the panels to create an "interleaved multistage switching fabric." (See diagram.) The connection and operation of the panels is especially novel.

Routers are commonly evaluated on the basis of performance, reliability, and scalability. The interleaved multistage switching fabric advantageously offers high performance, reliability, and a low complexity. Its parallel architecture and recirculation of data improve both performance and fault tolerance.

The switching fabric's low complexity is beneficial because it makes it scalable. Accordingly, the number of ports can be increased without encountering the size constraints that plague many other switching fabrics, thereby helping to enable next generation networks that, for example, incorporate the internet, telecommunications services, and television services.

Advantages:

• Faster - for example, speedups (over a single panel fabric) of 3.4 and 2.25 under uniform and hot-spot traffic patterns at maximum load
• Scalable - for next generation networks
• Improved - enhanced fault tolerance to both single and multiple faults

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