Fiber-ribbon pipeline ring network for high-performance distributed computing systems

In this paper, we propose a high-bandwidth ring network built up with fiber-ribbon point-to-point links. The network has support for both packet switched and circuit switched traffic. Very high throughputs can be achieved in the network due to pipelining, i.e., several packets can be traveling through the network simultaneously but in different segments of the ring. The network can be built today using fiber-optic off-the-shelf components. The increasingly good price/performance ratio for fiber-ribbon links indicates a great success potential for the proposed kind of networks. We also present a massively parallel radar signal processing system with exceptionally high demands on the communication network. An aggregated throughput of tens of Gb/s is needed in this application, and this is achieved with the proposed network.