Large-Scale Wire-Speed Multicast Switching Structure Based on Multipath Self-Routing Switching Structure and Implemented on FPGA

Abstract

Ensuring high quality of service (QoS) of multicast video stream over next generation network is a challenging issue, and how to implement the wire-speed multicast with hardware logical support in the network nodes of every hierarchy is a key solution to achieve high QoS multicast. Currently, the multicast packets are processed in this way, in which they are copied and then scheduled by ports, lastly, sent respectively. But this approach cannot ensure high QoS in real-time applications. Moreover, the traditional hardware solutions do not possess excellent large-scale scalability owning to their own bottlenecks. In this project, we have constructed a wire-speed multicast switching structure based on Multipath Self-routing Switching Structure, and implemented it on a Stratix IV FPGA chip. Additionally, we have designed the signaling system and control mechanism to support the process of self-routing and wire-speed fan-out copy of multicast packets.