Scalable distributed architecture of the terabit router

Aggressive research on terabit per second networks has led to dramatic improvements in network transmission speeds. One result of these improvements has been to put pressure on router technology to keep pace. There is more urgent need to research and study terabit (10/sup 12/bit) router. Traditional routes using shared-bus and central processing unit cannot do it. So how to support the terabit per second data speed is a great challenge for traditional router architecture. The recent years' new achievements in terabit routers are summarized, the new functions of terabit routers are introduced, and the distributed architecture of new generation super high speed terabit router are analyzed, which put emphasis on the multidimensional switching architecture. At last, the prospect of terabit router plays the final role.