Patent ID: 8457135

Claim:
A network comprising: a hierarchical structure of nodes comprising n layers including n−1 layers of switch nodes and 1 layer of computational nodes, where n is an integer greater than 1, where each layer in the structure includes one or more units of nodes and where L represents a layer in the structure and is an integer with L=0 representing a lowest layer and L=n−1 representing a highest layer and a number of nodes in a unit is greater than 1; wherein each node in a layer other than the computational layer comprises a switch node for a unit in a next lower layer in the structure and wherein each switch node is configured to receive a packet from a first node and transfer the packet to a second node without copying at the switch node data included in the packet; and wherein for each unit: each node in the unit is connected to each other node in the unit by a point to point link; each node in the unit is connected to a local switch node for the unit by a point to point link; and each node in the unit is connected to each other node in the unit and to the local switch node by a local broadcast network for the unit.