Arbitrary size bitonic (ASB) sorters and their applications in broadband ATM switching

Bitonic sorters require that the number of inputs to the sorter N be a power of two. If N is not a power of two, the sorter size must be increased to make it a power of two nearest to N which in turn increases the sorter complexity. In this paper we propose a scheme which does not require N to be a power of two. We call it an arbitrary size bitonic (ASB) sorter. It is shown that the number of sorting elements in an ASB sorter increases slowly as the number of inputs increases from N to 2N. It has also been shown that the proposed ASB sorters can be used to significantly reduce complexity of the ATM switches which employ sorters with recirculation.