Restriction-Free Adaptive Wormhole Routing in Multicomputer Networks

Abstract

The adaptive routing approach has been expected as a promising way to improve network performance by utilizing available network bandwidth. Previous adaptive routing strategies in wormhole-routed multicomputer networks restrict the routing of messages by the routing algorithm to prevent deadlock. This results in low degree of adaptivity and low utilization of physical or virtual channels. In this paper, we examine the possibility of performing restriction-free adaptive routing in wormhole-routed networks as an approach to further improving the performance of these networks. A new flow control policy, called message cutting-in, is proposed, and two adaptive routing strategies are presented. Freedom of communication deadlock is achieved by the proposed flow control policy. The proposed adaptive routing strategies do not restrict routing and maximally utilize the physical and virtual channels. Simulation results show that the restriction-free adaptive routing approach is promising from the fact that it has the lowest latency and highest throughput depending on the number of virtual channels per physical channel and patterns of message traffic.