A fault tolerant multistage interconnection network with partly duplicated switches
A multistage interconnection network (MIN) with partly duplicated stages is proposed in this paper, and network performance and fault tolerance are analyzed. The MIN is a hybrid of a non-redundant baseline network and a conventional fault-tolerant MIN called an ELMIN. In the case of a MIN with N input terminals and N output terminals, switching elements (SEs) in the first and nth stages are duplicated where n=log2N, and four-input two-output SEs and two-input four-output SEs are employed in the second and (n?1)th stages respectively. These extra SEs and links are useful in improving the fault tolerance and performance of the MIN and do not complicate the routing algorithm. A comparison of an ELMIN with the proposed MIN shows that this new approach is superior both in theoretical throughput and performance in faulty cases, even though it requires at most 1.33 times as many links and cross points in the SEs.
fault tolerance multistage interconnection network baseline network throughput link fault switching element fault destination routing duplicated switching elements priority assigned to the paths