The Connection Network class for Fault Tolerant Meshes

The Connection Network is a new class of Fault Tolerant Mesh networks which uses a switched bus net in a mesh-connected array. Much use of Rail Networks for Fault Tolerance of WSI is reported in the literature. The Connection Network simplifies the Rail Networks, and is superior in terms of theoretical power to survive faults. We demonstrate this by general comparison of the Connection and Rail Classes of networks, and a specific comparison between the Single Connection, Double Rail and Symmetric Networks. Our results show that the Connection Network is more powerful in terms of statistical theoretical constants and flexibility of algorithms; comparable in terms of VLSI area usage; has less signal delay on interconnections between Processing Elements; facilitates the implementation of switches which are fault tolerant and gracefully degradable; and allows the addition of redundant rails to cope with wire failure