Patent ID: 7103823

Claim:
A computer system comprising a plurality of processor clusters interconnected by a plurality of point-to-point inter-cluster links, each processor cluster comprising nodes including: a plurality of local processors; and an interconnection controller; wherein the nodes are interconnected by a plurality of point-to-point intra-cluster links, wherein communications within a cluster are made via an intra-cluster protocol that uses intra-cluster packets, wherein the interconnection controller in each cluster is operable to map locally-generated communications directed to others of the clusters to the point-to-point inter-cluster links and to map remotely-generated communications directed to the local nodes to the point-to-point intra-cluster links, wherein communications between clusters are made via an inter-cluster protocol that uses inter-cluster packets, an inter-cluster packet encapsulating at least one intra-cluster packet, and wherein each interconnection controller is configured to compute a first cyclic redundancy code check for, and to encode first cyclic redundancy code check data in, each inter-cluster packet transmitted on the point-to-point inter-cluster links.