Chapter 4 Switching and Queuing Delay Models 229

Input port Output port

tag tag

00 00
Input port Output port
tag tag 01 01
1
0 0
Packet 1 1
with tag 1
10 10
11 11

(a) (b)

Input port Output port

tag tag
000 000
001 001
Packet
with tag 100
100
010 010
011 011

(c)
100 100
101 101
Packet
with tag 001
001
110 110
111 111

Figure 4-9: Banyan switch fabric. (a) A Banyan switching element is a 2 2 switch that
moves packets either to output port 0 (upper port) or output port 1 (lower port), depending
on the packets tag. (b) A 4 4 Banyan network is composed from four 2 2 switching
elements. (c) An 8 8 Banyan network is composed from twelve 2 2 switching elements.

The building block of a Banyan network is a 2 2 switch, i.e., a switch with two inputs and two
outputs. The upper input and output ports are labeled with 0 and the lower input and output ports
are labeled with 1. This switch moves packets based on a single-bit tag. For example, in Figure
4-9(a) a packet labeled with tag 1 arrives at input port 0 of a 2 2 switch. The switch directs
the packet to the lower output port (the output port 1). To create a 4 4 switch, we need four
2 2 switching elements placed in a grid as in Figure 4-9(b). First we take two 2 2 switches and
label them 0 and 1. Then we take another pair of 2 2 switches and place them before the first
two. When a packet enters a switching element in the first stage, it is sent to the 2 2 switch
labeled 0 if the first bit of the packets tag is 0. Otherwise, it is sent to the switch labeled 1. To
create an 8 8 switch, we need two 4 4 switches and four 2 2 switching elements placed in a
grid as in Figure 4-9(c). Again, we label the two 4 4 switches as 0 and 1. The four 2 2
switching elements are placed before the 4 4 switches, and they send the packets to the