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3 - Interconnection Networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2009

Yuh-Dauh Lyuu
Affiliation:
NEC Research Institute, New Jersey
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Summary

What is interesting is always interconnection.

—Michel Foucault

We survey interconnection networks that link the processors in a parallel computer. Important terms and design issues pertaining to networks are also briefly discussed. This chapter is intended to be concise and sufficiently complete.

Introduction

The interconnection network in a multiprocessor specifies how the processors are tied together. The processors then communicate by sending information through the network. Since the interprocessor delay easily dominates the execution time [56] except where interprocessor communications are rare or only nearly processors exchange information, the choice of the network makes the difference between an efficient system and an inefficient one; clearly, a network where information has to traverse, say, 100 links on the average is less efficient than the one where only ten suffice, other things being equal. Besides the efficiency issue, the interconnection network also sets a limit to the number of faults a parallel computing system can sustain. For example, since a disconnected network that isolates some processors from the others makes joint computation impossible, the network should be able to withstand many faulty links.

This chapter surveys interconnection networks and related issues. In Section 3.2 some of the basic terms for networks are reviewed. A simple and useful graph- theoretical abstraction of networks is introduced in Section 3.3. Several popular networks are then briefly surveyed in Section 3.4, followed by Section 3.5, where some key issues in the choice of networks are summarized.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

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  • Interconnection Networks
  • Yuh-Dauh Lyuu, NEC Research Institute, New Jersey
  • Book: Information Dispersal and Parallel Computation
  • Online publication: 03 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511574955.005
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  • Interconnection Networks
  • Yuh-Dauh Lyuu, NEC Research Institute, New Jersey
  • Book: Information Dispersal and Parallel Computation
  • Online publication: 03 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511574955.005
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Interconnection Networks
  • Yuh-Dauh Lyuu, NEC Research Institute, New Jersey
  • Book: Information Dispersal and Parallel Computation
  • Online publication: 03 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511574955.005
Available formats
×