Patent ID: 7990983

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a plurality of devices; a plurality of interconnect branches, each of the interconnect branches coupled to a group of devices of the plurality of devices, each of the interconnect branches including a plurality of branch connector circuits coupled in series to allow the group of devices to exchange messages via the branch connector circuits, each of the branch connector circuits including multiple ports, and multiple connector paths coupling the multiple ports to transfer messages among the multiple ports; and a crossbar coupled to the interconnect branches to transfer messages between the group of devices coupled to one of the interconnect branches and the group of devices coupled to another one of the interconnect branches via the crossbar, wherein the crossbar includes: a first crossbar connector circuit and a second crossbar connector circuit; and a first transfer path to send a first message from the first crossbar connector circuit to the second crossbar connector circuit and to send a second message from the second crossbar connector circuit to the first crossbar connector circuit via the same first transfer path, wherein at least one of the branch connector circuits is coupled to the crossbar through a bi-directional segment to send a message to the crossbar through the bi-directional segment and to receive a message from the crossbar through the bi-directional segment.