Prototype design and implementation of a load-balanced Birkhoff-von Neumann switch

Load balanced Birkhoff-von Neumann switches are known to be more scalable than other existing switch architectures that guarantee 100% throughput. However, there are still several design and implementation challenges in prototyping such a switch, including (i) modular design, (ii) synchronization and propagation delay, (iii) fault tolerance, and (iv) buffer management. In this paper, we address these challenges and propose our solutions in our prototype. Specifically, we propose a folded architecture for modular design, a pipelining mechanism for synchronization and propagation delay, a Benes network for fault tolerance, and a caching scheme for buffer management.