Packet switching network with multiple packet destinations

摘要

A communication method and packet switching network in which self-routing packets are communicated to a single-destination port of the switching network, a plurality of grouped destination ports or to two distinct destination ports after the modification by the switching network of the self-contained routing information within the packets. The packet switching network has a plurality of stages with each stage comprising a plurality of switch nodes, and the communicated packets can be of the single-destination, broadcast, or multiple-destination types of packets. The routing information within the packet comprises pairs of data bits with each pair associated with a stage of the switching network and with the value of the pair of bits determines the type of packet for the corresponding stage. Each switching node has two input and two output terminals, and a switch node in a particular stage is responsive to a single-destination packet received on an input terminal to communicate the packet to the output terminal designated by the value of the pair of bits for that stage. A switch node is responsive to a broadcast type packet to communicate the packet to both output terminals. In response to a split-destination packet, a switch node examines the next pair of bits of the routing information relative to the pair corresponding to the switch node in order to form two new single-destination packets from the split-destination packet. The routing information of the split-destination packet is only modified with respect to this next pair of bits.