THE RING-BANYAN NETWORK: A FAULT TOLERANT MULTISTAGE INTERCONNECTION NETWORK FOR MULTIPROCESSOR SYSTEMS

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new fault tolerant multistage interconnection network (MIN) and a new adaptive self-routing scheme for the network. It can provide more multiple paths than the related previous networks between an input/output pair of a network by adding extra links between switching elements in the same stage and modifying the self-routing scheme of the banyan network. Our routing scheme is as simple as that of the banyan network, which is based on the topological relationships among the switching elements (SE’s) that render a packet to the same destination with the regular self-routing, which are discovered in this paper. We present an algebraic proof to show the correctness of this scheme, and an analytic reliability analysis to provide quantitative comparisons with other networks, which shows that the new network is more cost effective than the banyan network and other augmented MIN’s in terms of the reliability.