Patent ID: 8811387

Claim:
A system of network resources, the network resources being dynamically reconfigurable into a plurality of networks forming interconnections between nodes in a plurality of network nodes, each of the network nodes being one of a functional module and a peripheral module, each of the networks being configurable as one of a circuit-switched network and a packet-switched network, the system comprising: a plurality of switching modules, the switching modules being arranged in an ordered plurality of switching levels including a highest level and a lowest level, each of the switching modules including a selecting circuit controlled by a mode selecting signal, the selecting circuit according to the mode selecting signal being able to select a switching control signal from between a circuit-switching signal and a packet-switching signal, thereby selecting a mode of the switching module as one of a circuit-switched mode and a packet-switched mode; and a plurality of module interconnections, for each of the switching modules, the module interconnections providing forward and backward communication between the switching module and a plurality of modules at a next lower level, the plurality of modules at the next lower level including at least one of switching modules and network nodes, for each of the switching modules that is not at the highest level, the module interconnections providing forward and backward communication between the switching module and exactly one switching module at the next higher level, the switching modules and interconnections being thereby able to form a pair of forward and backward communication channels between any two of the network nodes.