Patent ID: 7277449

Claim:
A network for enabling communications between a plurality of processing elements, comprising: a network having a plurality of ports, each port conforming to a consistent port protocol for transferring network packets between ports; a plurality of port interfaces, each coupled to a corresponding port and configured to convert information of a corresponding processing element into network packets and to decode an address into a corresponding one of the plurality of ports, each port interface configured to operate in conformance with the consistent port protocol to exchange network packets with other port interfaces via the network; each port including an arbitration interface and a data interface; and the network comprising: an interconnect having selectable data paths between any of the plurality of ports in which a source port data output is coupled to a destination port data input for an acknowledged transaction; and an arbiter, coupled to the interconnect and to the plurality of ports, that receives a plurality of transaction requests and provides corresponding acknowledgements via the arbitration interfaces of the ports, that arbitrates among a plurality of transaction requests, and that controls the interconnect to select data paths between source and destination ports for acknowledged transactions.