Design and performance evaluation of unbuffered self-routing networks for wide-band packet switching

The design of several unbuffered self-routing networks for wideband packet switching is presented. These networks possess many attractive characteristics, including simple node design, simple fault diagnosis, tolerance of faults, tolerance of unbalanced load, and packets delivered in sequence. It is shown, through analysis and simulation, that the maximum throughput of an unbuffered self-routing network is greater for fixed packet lengths than for exponentially distributed packet lengths. This means that the maximum throughput of an unbuffered self-routing network will be different for such applications as ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) and frame-relay, if they do not have the same packet length distribution.<
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