An automorphic approach to the design of fault-tolerant multiprocessors

A general and systematic approach to the design of fault-tolerant multiprocessors modeled by graphs is developed. The approach is based on graph automorphisms and is applicable to any graph structure and any degree of fault tolerance. In addition, it incorporates other useful design criteria such as incremental design, low redundancy, and efficient reconfigurability. The authors apply their approach directly to a class of regular multiprocessor graphs termed 'circulant'. For noncirculant graphs, they give an algorithm to construct their circulant edge supergraphs efficiently. They show that the automorphic design method is amenable to efficient implementation using switched redundant links. An application of the foregoing theory to the design of a fault-tolerant hypercube multiprocessor is described.<>