Switches and switch interconnects

Switched networks are receiving much attention and supplying a major class of interconnect networks. This paper discusses major issues in switch design and switch interconnects. Due to the importance of high-speed switches in building switched LANs, major design issues are studied and several commercial switches are reviewed. Among different techniques used in switch design, cut-through switching promises short latency delivery and thus is well suited to distributed/parallel applications. The back pressure flow control of cut-through switching also prevents packet loss due to buffer overflow. For economical and practical reasons, switch interconnects should support irregular topologies, which makes deadlock-free routing more difficult. To provide good network performance, a key point is to develop a traffic-balanced network with minimum diameter and average path length. It is important to understand the issues and solutions in these areas in order to meet the increasing performance demand.