MODULAR ARCHITECTURE FOR VERY LARGE PACKET SWITCH

摘要

A modular architecture for a very large packet switch is disclosed. Each module (40) comprises a Batcher subnetwork (51) and an expansion routing network (52), which expansion routing network includes a set of binary tree subnetworks (53) interconnected with aset of banyan subnetworks (54). A packet may be routed from an input of the switch to any output by means of only one switch module. This means that the switch modules may be synchronized independently of each other and if one module fails the remainder of the modules may continue to route packets.