Interconnection Networks

CHAPTER 7

Network Architectures

In many instances, particularly in fine-grained parallel computers, the performance of the applications is communication limited rather than computation limited. In this case, the design of the network architecture is crucial. By network architecture we refer to the topology of interconnection between the processing nodes, and the data and control path of the routers within the individual nodes. The design of the network architecture is fundamentally a process of making trade-offs between performance parameters (such as cost, latency, and throughput) and physical constraints (such as area, wireability, and I/O limitations). Since physical constraints are continually evolving with advances in fabrication and packaging ...