SELF-ROUTING PACKET SWITCHING NETWORK

摘要

A packet switching architecture in which switching network nodes automatically determine alternate routes through a switching network so as to increase reliability and distribute traffic. The switching network comprises stages of distribution and routing nodes. The routing nodes are responsive to physical addresses associated with the packets to communicate those packets to address designated downstream nodes. The distribution switching nodes statistically communicate packets to downstream switching nodes on the basis of an alternate routing algorithm and availability of downstream nodes. The initial network stages are alternate distribution and routing stages followed by only routing stages for the remaining stages of the network. Both the routing and the distributing nodes are identical in design and are responsive to an input signal from the network to assume either routing or distributing functions.