Patent ID: 7068671

Claim:
An interconnect structure S containing a plurality of nodes and a plurality of interconnects selectively coupling the nodes, the interconnect structure comprising: a node set T; an interconnect set I that selectively connects nodes in the node set T; a device set A mutually exclusive of the node set T with each device in the device set A being capable of sending data to a node in the node set T; a device set Z mutually exclusive of the node set T with each device in the device set Z being capable of receiving data from a node in the node set T; a collection C of node sets that are subsets of the node set T, each node in the node set T being contained in exactly one member of the collection C; for a device x in the device set Z, a sequence cx=cx 0 , cx 1 , cx 2 , . . . , cx J exists with each member of the sequence cx being a node set in the collection C, the sequence cx being capable of passing data from devices in the device set A to the device x on a plurality of paths, among the plurality of paths being a path set P(x) characterized in that a path R is included in the path set P(x) only if each node on the path R is in a member of the sequence cx, a node of the path R that receives a message directly from a device in the device set A being in a set having a form cx U and a node of the path R that sends data directly to the device x being in a set of a form cx V with U being larger than V; for a member Q of the collection C, a corresponding set of devices Z(Q) exists in the device set Z such that a device zq is included in the set of devices Z(Q) only if the member Q is also a member of a sequence cq; for members CXH and CXK of the sequence cx with H>K, a device set Z(cx K ) is a subset of a device set Z(cx H ) and a device exists in the device set Z(cx H ) that is not included in the device set Z(cx K ); and the node set T includes three distinct nodes p, q, and r, the node p being in a member cz D of a sequence cz, the nodes q and r being in a member cz E of the sequence cz with D>E, in one path of path set P(x) a message moves directly from the node p to the node r and in another path of path set P(x) a message moves directly from the node q to the node r.