Approximate Analysis of the Binary d-Cube Network

Distributed memory computers require eficient, high-bandwidth networks to support fine-grain computation. In developing an analytic model .for 0 network, the underlying details of the aschitectiure are often abstracted to simplify the model and to facilitate a comparison with other networks. As a rt!sult i t becomes dificult to compare the relative meids of the architectural features in a particularr network. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the binary dcube network. Our model has been shown to provide results that are very similar to those derived from a detailed simulation model. Among other things, our analysis shows that srnall increases in routing latency can significantly degrade throughput, but does not degrade the probability of acceptance of a mqessage. It atso shows that just a few buffers 0ii heavily congested destination links can improve performance greatly, almost as much as bzqfering on all destinalion links.