A new multicast ATM switching architecture proposal

The integration of different kinds of multimedia services including multicasting services, such as teleconferencing, entertainment videos, and file distribution, etc., requires a multicast switching system to flexibly handle these services. We propose a multicast ATM cell switching architecture for ATM networks, where the abilities of a broadcast bus are used to provide multicasting. Instead of using the concatenation of a copying network and a routing network, the same switching network is used to perform both copying and routing of multicast ATM cells. This multicast switch architecture treats unicast and multicast cells in the same way, and the mean delay for the two kinds of cells has the same characteristics for the offered load traffic in the switching system. The results of an extensive simulation and a mathematical analysis of this switch architecture are also included.