Efficient parallel multicast ATM switch

A novel multicast switch architecture with high throughput performance and low hardware complexity is proposed. The storage complexity of the translation tables required by the copy network is improved from O(N²) to O(N). The throughput performance of the proposed switch architecture is very close to 100% when more than five multicast switching modules (MSMs) are used. The proposed multicast switch architecture is composed of multiple MSMs arranged in parallel. An MSM is composed of a copy network and a routing network. A multicast bounded-fanout principle is proposed which states that the overflow probability of a copy network can be reduced to an acceptable level if the output capacity of the copy network is properly expanded. Instead of building a very large expanded copy network, multiple small copy networks are arranged in parallel to effectively expand the aggregate output capacity of the copy networks. A simple copy network architecture is proposed which guarantees that all cell copies are generated at predefined outlets so that the storage complexity of the translation tables is of O(N). A Batcher-banyan based routing network is adopted to switch cell copies generated by the copy network. A 10^-9 cell loss probability can be achieved when twelve MSMs are used in the proposed switch