A programmable routing controller for flexible communications in point-to-point networks

Abstract

Modern parallel and distributed applications have a wide range of communication characteristics and performance requirements. This paper presents programmable routing controller (PRC), a custom ASIC that supports flexible network policies to accommodate diverse application requirements. By dedicating a small programmable processor to each incoming link, the PRC can implement wormhole, virtual cut-through, and packet switching, as well as hybrid schemes, under a variety of unicast and multicast routing algorithms. The PRC can support several applications or traffic types simultaneously by implementing multiple routing-switching microcode routines.