Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for dynamic detection and routing of non-uniform traffic in parallel buffered multistage interconnection networks

US5274782A · kind A · utility

79Cited by
10References
12Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 27, 1990
Grant dateDec 28, 1993
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 27, 2010

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F15/17393
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus for routing processor-memory data traffic in a shared-memory multiprocessor computer system employs an interconnection network including two buffered multistage switching networks. Each of these networks can be used to route the data from any processing element to any memory element. Depending on the nature of the processor-memory traffic, two distinct routing schemes are used to distribute the traffic among the two networks. The first method distributes the memory accesses evenly among the two networks and maximizes performance when the memory accesses are uniformly distributed among the memory modules. However, when the traffic is highly non-uniform, a second routing method is used to confine the non-uniform part of the traffic to one network and the remaining part to the other network. The routing method is selected based on the prevailing traffic conditions. A distributed feedback mechanism detects the change in traffic conditions and changes the routing method accordingly. A traffic monitoring circuit within each memory module monitors the traffic into the memory module continuously and senses a change in the traffic condition. The condition is conveyed …

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.