Design and performance evaluation of a packet switch for broadband central offices
Achille Pattavina · 2002
A broadband packet switch is described whose interconnection network is based on a Batcher-banyan structure. The switch, which is able to transfer up to M packets per slot to a given switch outlet, is provided with packet buffers both at input and output ports. A probe-ack contention resolution scheme is adopted to select the conflict-free paths for the packets to be transferred through the interconnection network. This scheme at the same time limits the access to the interconnection network to a number of packets such that the buffer overflow at the output queues never takes place. Restricting the packet loss so that it occurs only at input queues simplifies the control procedures and makes it possible to jointly optimize the packet storage capability at input and output queues.>