Graph partitioning strategy for the topology design

of industrial network
F. Li, Q. Zhang and W. Zhang

Abstract: Network topology design problem in industrial network is formulated, which is shown to
be equivalent to a multi-constraint optimisation problem: the network design should minimise the
amount of inter-network communication, and simultaneously balance the communication load and
network size evenly over the resultant sub-networks. To solve this optimisation problem, a graph
partitioning strategy is proposed, which can give a good network design by partitioning a graph-
based representation of the network optimisation problem. Then, the network optimisation pro-
cedures using the graph partitioning strategy are detailed and two experimental, examples are
studied. In the experiments, the network designs obtained by the graph partitioning strategy are
compared with those obtained by a random partitioning method. The experimental results demon-
strate the network designs obtained by the graph partitioning strategy are significantly better than
those obtained by the random partitioning method.

1 Introduction network at a maximum limit. Meanwhile, the network

Nowadays, Ethernet is the most widely used local area network
communication technology. Owning to its high speed, low
price, and openness to web technology, there is an increasing
interest in the control community to adopt Ethernet as an
open industrial communication standard [1, 2]. Traditional
Ethernet uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision
Detect (CSMA/CD) as its media access control (MAC) pro-
tocol. CSMA/CD is essentially a stochastic bus arbitration
mechanism, therefore, which cannot guarantee the real-time
capability required by most industrial communication environ-
ment. However, the advancement of switched Ethernet has
made it possible to connect all communication devices in
micro-segment full-duplex mode. In such case, there is only
one communication device within each collision domain,
and the CSMA/CD mechanism can be completely removed.
Switched Ethernet provides not only more communication
bandwidth for each device, but also makes it easier to deploy
the network over a large area [3].
The ultimate goal of industrial Ethernet is to connect not
only the control equipments in the upper control layer, but
also all field devices in the lower device layer [4]. The
network design problem in industrial Ethernet has some
common characteristics with general communication net-
works, such as the autonomy requirement: the communi-
cation devices that have closer communication
relationship should be put into the same sub-network when-
ever possible. On the other hand, industrial Ethernet has
some special characteristics and requirements that are
different from general communication networks. For
example, the communication load between the two field
devices in industrial Ethernet can often be estimated in
advance, which provides the opportunity to optimise the
# The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2007
doi:10.1049/iet-com:20060677
Paper first received 16th December 2006 and in revised form 12th April 2007
The authors are with the Automation Department, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, Shanghai 200240, Peoples Republic of China
E-mail: lifeng@sjtu.edu.cn
1104
design in industrial Ethernet often gives preference to
network reliability and real-time capability, rather than
bandwidth utilisation or wiring convenience.
The purpose of network topology optimisation is to
improve the network performance by making full use of
the existing network facility. Some researchers have pro-
posed various methods to solve the network optimisation
problem [5 10], but what they aimed at optimising is
general communication networks; therefore, in this paper,
the network design problem in switched industrial
Ethernet is specially investigated. It is supposed that the
switched industrial Ethernet is used to connect field
devices, and the micro-segment full-duplex communication
mode is adopted.
The network design in switched industrial Ethernet can
be divided into two stages: first, a proper network topology
is chosen, and in the secondly all communication devices
are partitioned into the chosen network topology in an
appropriate way. The second stage can be formulated as a
network optimisation problem. To improve the network per-
formance of switched industrial Ethernet, a graph partition-
ing strategy for this network optimisation problem is
proposed, which shows a good network design that can be
obtained by partitioning a graph-based representation of
the switched industrial Ethernet.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows: Sections 2
formulates the network optimisation problem in switched
industrial Ethernet. Section 3 proposes a graph partitioning
strategy to solve the network optimisation problem.
Section 4 further investigates the network optimisation
procedures. Section 5 introduces two multi-constraint graph
partitioning algorithms that can be used in the network optim-
isation procedures. Section 6 demonstrates the capability of
the graph partitioning strategy by some experimental
examples. Section 7 concludes this paper with some remarks.
2 Problem formulation
To guarantee a good real-time capability and network
reliability, switched industrial Ethernet usually adopts a
IET Commun., 2007, 1, (6), pp. 1104 1110
simple network topology. The ring and tree topologies in less 2. Balance the communication load evenly over the resul-
than three levels are very popular in an industrial environ- tant sub-networks, such that the switches in the same
ment. As a simple comparison, the tree topology is able to network level have a roughly equal communication burden.
provide better real-time performance for its smaller forward- 3. Assign all communication devices evenly to all sub-
ing delays, whereas the ring topology is able to provide better networks, such that the networks in the same level get a
network redundancy for its fast-recovery feature [11, 12]. roughly equal number of devices.
These two kinds of topologies can also be combined together
to construct a hybrid ringtree topology (Fig. 1). The ring Use i f1, 2, . . . , lg to number the field devices, and
topology is used in the upper level to give a reliable back- n f1, 2, . . . , kg to number the sub-networks. Denote cij
bone, meanwhile, the tree topology is used in the lower as the amount of data sent from source device i to destina-
level to achieve smaller forwarding delays. After the tion device j, and denote P(i) as the sub-network to which
network topology is decided, the remaining task is to par- device i belongs, then define
tition all communication devices into the selected topology

in an appropriate way. 1, P(i) n
xin (1)
The main basis for the network partitioning is the com- 0, P(i) = n
munication load between the two arbitrary devices. If the
If device i and device j belong to the same sub-network,
communication load is evenly distributed among all
then xin(12 xjn) 0. If device i belongs to one sub-network
devices and there is no such requirement that some
while device j belongs to another different sub-network, then
devices have to be assigned to the same sub-network, then
xin(12 xjn) 1.
the network can be designed in up-to-down order. That is,
The first design principle is equivalent to minimise the
all devices are firstly partitioned into some upper level sub-
aggregate inter-network communication, which can be
networks; afterwards the devices in each upper level sub-
computed from
network are further partitioned into some lower level
X
sub-sub-networks. This partitioning operation is repeated C xin (1  xjn )cij (2)
until the smallest network size meets the design 1
i
j
l
requirement.
On the other hand, if some devices need to collaborate The second design principle is equivalent to guarantee
together to realise a single control task, it is a good idea the network load satisfy the approximation constraint
to put these intimate devices into the same sub-network. X cij
In such case, the network can be designed in down-to-up load(n) , for n 1, 2, 3, . . . , k (3)
order. That is, those intimate devices are firstly partitioned 1
i
j
l
k
into an appropriate number of lower level sub-networks.
When designing the upper level network, each lower level where load(n) is the communication burden over sub-
sub-network is regarded as a single device that aggregates network n, which can be computed from
the sub-network traffic. Sometimes, to facilitate the X
l X X X
l
network management and maintenance, it is preferred to load(n) cij cij (4)
put those geographically close devices into the same sub- i1 8j:p(j)n 8i:p(i)n j1
network, such case can also be dealt with the down-to-up
design order. The third design principle is equivalent to ensure the
Whether the up-to-down or down-to-up design order is network size satisfy the approximation constraint
chosen, the network design can be finally reduced to a
sequence of network partitioning problems. To optimise X
l
l
size(n) xin , for n 1, 2, 3, . . . , k (5)
the network performance, as a general design rule, the fol- k
i1
lowing three principles should be taken into account when
partitioning the network: Accordingly, the three network design principles can be
further formulated as a multi-constraint optimisation
1. Put those devices that have closer communication problem. Equation (2) is the minimising objective, and the
relationship into the same sub-network, such that the approximation equation (3) and (5) are the constraints. In
amount of inter-network communication is minimised [13]. the following section, it is shown that this multi-constraint
optimisation problem can be solved by a graph partitioning
strategy.

3 Graph partitioning strategy

Graph partitioning is the problem of partitioning a set of

Fig. 1 Two-level industrial Ethernet with hybrid ringtree
topology
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 6, December 2007
vertices into disjoint subsets, such that the number of
edges whose incident points belong to different subsets is
minimised, and simultaneously each subset is ensured to
get a roughly equal number of vertices. It is a useful optim-
isation strategy that has been applied to many fields, such as
scientific computing [14], task scheduling [15] and VLSI
circuit design [16].
A graph is commonly represented as G (V, E), where
V fv1 , v2 , . . . , vng is the set of vertices, and E fe1 ,
e2 , . . . , emg is the set of edges that determine the connec-
tivity between the vertices. The vertices and edges are
both weighted, the weights of vertex vi is defined by a
vector wvi (each vertex has multiple associated weights),
1105
and the weight of edge ei is defined by a scalar wei . If all ver-
tices vi [ V are divided into k subsets of vertices fV1 ,
V2 , . . . , Vkg (where Vi > Vj 1) and if i = j, <Vj V,
then fV1 , V2 , . . . , Vkg is called one of the k,way partitioning
of graph G.
Let P be the partitioning vector of size jVj, such that for
each vertex vi [ V, P[vi] is an integer between 1 and k,
which denotes the subset to which vi belongs. The multi-
constraint graph partitioning problem then can be defined
as searching for partitioning vector P which minimises the
sum of the weighed edges whose incident vertices belong
to different subsets, at the same time, the sum of each
vertex weight needs to be balanced over the resultant
subsets [17].
( )
X
min we (vi , vj ) , where P[i] = P[j]
1
i
j
n
If the scalar wei is set to a constant value of one for each
edge, and the vector wvi is replaced by a scalar wvi , which is
also set to a constant value of one for each vertex, then the
graph partitioning problem will degenerate into a traditional
graph partition problem. If only the vector wvi is replaced by
a scalar wvi , then the graph partitioning problem will be
equivalent to a weighted graph partitioning problem [14].
A graph-based representation of the network optimisation
problem has been formulated in Section 2. First, the com-
munication devices are transferred into an equal number
of vertices in a graph G (V, E), and then the communi-
cation relationship between devices are transferred into
edge connection one-for-one. For each vertex vi [ V, a two-
dimension vector wvi [w 1vi, w 2vi] is defined, where w 1vi, is
directly proportional to the aggregate communication load
of device vi , and w 2vi, is corresponding to the number of
switch ports that device vi will occupy (1). For each
edge ei [ E, a scalar weight wei is defined, whose value is
directly proportional to the communication load between
the corresponding two devices. The aggregate inter-network
communication of (2) can be transferred into the minimis-
ing objective of (6), and the approximations of (3) and (5)
can be transferred into two balancing constraints associated
with the graph partitioning problem.
If the graph is perfectly partitioned, then the sum of the
weighted edges that straddle different subsets will be mini-
mised, and simultaneously the constraints that each subset
has a roughly equal amount of each vertex weight will be
also satisfied. Our solution to the optimisation problem of
switched industrial Ethernet can be obtained directly from
the graph partitioning results. Those devices whose corre-
sponding vertices belong to the same subset should be put
into the same sub-network. As a result, the amount of inter-
network communication (corresponding to the sum of the
weighted edges that straddle different subsets) can be mini-
mised. Meanwhile, the communication burden and network
size are also balanced over the resultant sub-networks.
The situation where the graph partitioning does not give a
perfectly balanced solution is P also investigated. First,
p p
w
Pvi , (p 1, 2) is normalised by 8vi[Vw vi to ensure that
p
8vi[Vw vi 1.0 is satisfied. For any k-way partitioning
solution, the pth weight unbalance coefficient is defined
as [17]
!
p
X
b k max wpvi , p 1, 2; n 1, 2, . . . , k
8vi :P[vi ]n
1106
PIf the pth pweight is perfectly balanced, then there is
8vi: P[vi]n w vi 1/k for each sub-network n, therefore
b p 1, otherwise, the weight unbalance coefficient
b 1 1 a(a = 0) meansPthe maximum load among all
sub-networks P is (1 a) 1
i
j
lcij/k, rather than the
average load 1
i
j
lcij/k. The weight unbalance coeffi-
cient b 2 1 b,(b = 0) means the maximum network
size among all sub-networks is (1 b)l/k, rather than the
average size l/k.
4 Network optimisation procedures
In this section, a design example with eight devices is pre-
sented to illustrate the proposed network optimisation
procedures.
(6)
4.1 Communication matrix
Define the communication matrix that reflects the com-
munication relationship between all communication
devices as
2 3
0 a12 a13    a1l
6 a21 0 a23    a2l 7
6 7
A6 6 a31 a32 0    a3l 7
7 (8)
4     5
al1 al2 al3    0
where the element aij is the communication weight between
source device i and destination device j, which is in directly
proportional to the communication load cij . Denote mc
maxfcijg, then divide the interval (0, mc] into w equal sub-
intervals: (0, mc/ w], (mc/w, 2mc/w], . . . , ((w 2 1) mc/w],
mc . If cij locates in the first sub-interval, the corresponding
communication weight aij equals to 1, whereas if cij locates
in the second sub-interval, aij equals to 2, and so on. If there
is no data sent from device i to device j, then the corre-
sponding communication weight aij equals to 0. Fig. 2
depicts the communication matrix for the design example
when w adopts 10.
4.2 Graph-based representation
The graph-based representation of the network optimisation
problem can be derived from the communication matrix.
Each device i is first transferred into one vertex vi in the
graph, and each vertex is associated with two weights.
The first vertex weight w 1vi is computed from
X
l X
l
w1vi aij aji (9)
j1 j1
Fig. 2 Communication load between eight devices and the corre-
(7)
sponding communication matrix
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 6, December 2007
 The second vertex weight w 2vi is always set to one. The
edge weight between the vertices vi and vj is computed as
we (vi , vj ) aij aji
For the design example, the corresponding graph-based
representation is depicted in Fig. 3.
4.3 Graph partitioning
The graph-based representation needs to be partitioned into
k subsets with roughly equal size, where k equals to the
number of sub-networks. The determination of k is a com-
promise of multi-conditions such as the field devices
numbers, the geographical location of devices, switch
numbers, port numbers of switches, performance of the
employed switches, communication load of devices, the
cost of network deployment, and so on. In general, the prin-
ciple is: under the premise of satisfying industrial communi-
cation requirement, we should ensure to take full advantage
of network equipment performance, reduce costs as far as
possible and reserve a certain degree of resource for poss-
ible future extension. Karypis and kumar [17] proposed
two graph partitioning algorithms to solve the multi-
constraint graph partitioning problem, which are both
based on a multi-level paradigm. The original graph is
first coarsened to generate a sequence of smaller graphs.
A simple graph partitioning algorithm is then used to find
a partitioning of the coarsest graph. Afterwards the parti-
tioning is successively un-coarsened and refined to obtain
the solution of the original graph [18, 19]. The multilevel
paradigm will be further discussed in Section 5. For the
design example, its graph-based representation is parti-
tioned into two subsets as depicted in Fig. 3.
4.4 Problem solution
After the graph-based representation is partitioned, a parti-
tioning vector P of size jVj is obtained, and then, the devices
that should be put into sub-network n can be derived from
Subnetn {ijP[i] n}, n 1, 2, . . . , k
For the design example, the graph partitioning gives the
partitioning vector P [12121212], with the weight unba-
lance coefficients b1 1.03, b2 1.00 for the first and
second vertex weight, respectively. On the basis of (11),
devices f1, 3, 5, 7g are put into sub-network 1, and devices
f2, 4, 6, 8g are put into sub-network 2. The amount of inter-
network communication is, which is equal to the sum of
the weighted edges that straddle subset 1 and subset 2 (see
Fig. 3).
P The maximum sub-network load can be computed
as b1 1
i
j
8cij/k 1.03  197/2 101.
Fig. 3 Network design can be obtained by partitioning the
graph-based representation of a network
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 6, December 2007
Remark: To design a single-level network, the proposed
network optimisation procedures can be directly used to
find an ideal network design. To design a multi-level
(10) network, the network design problem can be finally trans-
ferred into a sequence of multi-constraint graph partitioning
problems. Therefore, the proposed network optimisation
procedures can be repeatedly applied to each design level.
5 Multi-constraint partitioning algorithms
To solve multi-constraint graph partitioning problem,
Karypis and kumar [17] proposed multi-constraint multi-
level recursive bisection (MMRB) algorithm and multi-
constraint Multi-level K-way partition (MMKP) algorithm.
Both MMRB and MMKP algorithms are based on a multi-
level paradigm, which contains the following three phases
(see Fig. 4 for MMRB algorithm).
5.1 Coarsening phase
The original graph G0 is collapsed to obtain a sequence of
successive smaller graph G1 . G2 .    . Gn . In this
process, several vertices of Gi are collapsed together to
form a single vertex of the next level coarser graph Gi1 .
Denote Viv as the set of vertices of Gi collapsed to form
vertex v of Gi1 . To ensure a partitioning of the coarser
graph is good with respect to the original graph, the
weights of vertex v are set equal to the sum of the
weights of all vertices in Viv. To ensure the coarser graph
preserves the connectivity information in the original
graph, the edges of v are set to the union of the edges of
all vertices in Viv. If more than one vertex in Viv contain
edges to the same vertex u collapsed from Viu, the weight
of the edge of v is set to equal to the sum of the weights
of these edges [20].
5.2 Initial partitioning phase
(11) The goal of the initial partitioning phase is to compute a
bisection of the coarsest graph Gn in MMRB algorithm, or
a k-way partitioning of the coarsest graph Gn in MMKP
algorithm. Since the coarsest graph has only a small
number of vertices, the time spent on finding a good parti-
tioning is relatively less. Either MMRB or MMKP partition-
ing algorithm must ensure that all the constraints are
satisfied. It is not necessary to find the optimal partitioning,
since the refinement operation at the later phase will signifi-
cantly alter the partitioning result.
Fig. 4 Three phases of multilevel recursive bisection algorithm
1107
5.3 Un-coarsening phase
In the un-coarsening phase, the partitioning vector P of the
coarsest graph Gn is successively projected back to the orig-
inal graph by going through the graphs Gn21 , Gn22 , . . . , G0.
Since each vertex v in Gi1 contains a distinct subset of ver-
tices Vvi of Gi , Pi is obtained from Pi1 by simply assigning
the set of vertices v [ Vvi to the partitioning Pi1 [20]. Since
the next level finer graph has more degrees of freedom, a
local refinement algorithm can be used to improve the par-
titioning quality without violating the balance constraints.
The refinement algorithm at each un-coarsening level can
significantly improve the partitioning quality because it
moves successively smaller subsets of vertices among
partitions.
6 Experimental examples
In this section two experimental examples are studied using
the proposed graph partitioning strategy. The graph-based
representations are partitioned by taking advantage of
Metis 4.0 library [21], which provides the routines of
mCPartGraphRecursive( ) and mCPartGraphKway( ) to
implement the MMRB and the MMKP algorithms, respect-
ively. At the same time, the network is also designed by a
random partitioning algorithm, that is, all devices are ran-
domly assigned to the resultant sub-networks while ensur-
ing each sub-network gets a roughly equal number of
devices. The experimental results are compared to show
the effectiveness of the proposed graph partitioning
strategy.
6.1 Case study
Example 1: Consider a simple example in which 40 com-
munication devices are required to be partitioned into four
sub-networks. The communication matrix is given in
Fig. 5. The proposed network optimisation procedures are
employed to solve this problem. The partitioning vector,
inter-network communication, load unbalance and size
unbalance are written into Table 1. While comparing the
partitioning quality, MMRB algorithm gives the best
Fig. 5 Communication matrix between 40 communication devices
1108
partitioning, MMKP algorithm also gives a good partition-
ing and the random partitioning method gives the worst par-
titioning. Compared with the random partitioning method,
the graph partitioning strategy reduces
30% of the
amount of inter-network communication and
10% of the
load unbalance.
Example 2: Consider a more complicated example in which
500 devices are required to be partitioned into a two-level
network. The hybrid ring tree network topology as
depicted in Fig. 1 is adopted. In the upper level, there are
five federal switches to build up the backbone, whereas in
the lower level each sub-network contains ten access
switches to connect all devices with the network. The com-
munication load is supposed to be distributed uniformly
among all devices, so the up-to-down design order can be
followed. The network partitioning is carried out in two
steps:
Step 1: First the 500 communication devices are partitioned
into five sub-networks. The inter-network communication,
load unbalance and size unbalance are given in Table 2.
The result shows that the MMRB algorithm gives the best
partitioning, the MMKP algorithm gives a little worse par-
titioning and the random method again gives the worst par-
titioning. Compared with the random partitioning method,
the graph partitioning strategy reduces
30% of the
amount of inter-network communication.
Step 2: The best partitioning result in step 1 (given by
MMRB algorithm) is selected, each sub-network is further
partitioned into ten sub-sub-networks. The inter-network
communication, load unbalance and size unbalance for
each sub-network are given in Table 3. If the weight unba-
lance coefficient is ,1.10, the constraint can be considered
to be well balanced. So, if neglecting the load unbalance and
size unbalance, the MMKP algorithm gives somewhat
better partitioning quality than the MMRB algorithm in
four of the five sub-network partitioning. The random parti-
tioning method still gives the worst partitioning quality,
with not only higher inter-network communication, but
also larger load unbalance.
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 6, December 2007
Table 1: Forty communication devices are partitioned into four sub-networks

Partitioning method Partitioning vector Inter-network Load Size

communication unbalance unbalance

MMRB [22143324113114141343 32234133224224342114] 990 1.01 1.00

MMKP [43321142331332423121 13412411342442124432] 998 1.02 1.00
Random [11111111112222222222 33333333334444444444] 1393 1.13 1.00

the needed running time, the MMKP algorithm spent less

Table 2: Five hundred communication devices are time than the MMRB algorithm. However, the running
partitioned into five sub-networks time to execute the graph partitioning algorithms is only
several seconds, we can neglect it when comparing the par-
Partitioning Inter-network Load Size titioning quality.
method communication unbalance unbalance While using the mCPartGraphRecursive( ) and
mCPartGraphKway( ) routines, the coarsening phase,
MMRB 15 735 1.01 1.01 initial partitioning phase and un-coarsening phase adopt
MMKP 15 977 1.04 1.04 the default methods, that is, sorted heavy-edge matching,
Random 22 131 1.05 1.00 random partitioning, early-exit boundary FM refinement
for MMRB algorithm, and sorted heavy-edge matching,
relaxed multilevel recursive bisection, random boundary
refinement for MMKP algorithm. The partitioning quality
with other methods adopted in the three phases of the
Table 3: Each sub-network are further partitioned into
MMRB algorithm, and the MMKP algorithm is also
ten sub-sub-networks
studied in our experiment, the experiments show slightly
Partitioning Sub- Inter- Load Size different results.
method network network unbalance unbalance
Sometimes, the network needs to be partitioned into a
number of sub-networks with unequal weights. For
number communication
example, one of the sub-networks should contain 40% of
MMRB 1 1467 1.02 1.01 the communication load and devices, and the other sub-
2 1521 1.02 1.00
network should contain 60% of the communication load
and devices. For this case, another two graph partitioning
3 1440 1.01 1.00
routines WPartGraphRecursive( ) and WPartGraphKway( )
4 1477 1.02 1.09 in the Metis library can be employed [21]. They can be
5 1542 1.01 1.00 used to compute a partitioning with a prescribed partition
MMKP 1 1501 1.02 1.01 weights.
2 1457 1.01 1.00
3 1431 1.02 1.00
4 1431 1.05 1.09 7 Conclusion
5 1506 1.01 1.00
This paper investigated the main design principles that
Random 1 2247 1.26 1.01
should be followed when optimising switched industrial
2 2228 1.10 1.00 Ethernet, and then proposed a graph partitioning strategy
3 2221 1.16 1.00 for the network optimisation. With the research community
4 2188 1.15 1.09 being keen on an open vendor-independent communication
5 2226 1.06 1.00 standard, Ethernet is quickly becoming the best communi-
cation technology used in industrial environments. As a
matter of fact, there are still many technical problems to
be overcome when using Ethernet as a device network.
6.2 Discussion Nevertheless, as an open and widely used technology,
Ethernet has gathered more advance momentum than any
When investigating all the experimental results, it is appar-
other Fieldbus technologies. With the research community
ent that the graph partitioning strategy gives much more
is making great efforts to remove industrial Ethernets
appreciated network partitioning than the random partition-
application obstacles, there has seen an increasing use of
ing algorithm. Although the random partitioning algorithm
industrial Ethernet in factory floors. In the near future,
can retry a number of times to obtain a better network
industrial Ethernet will definitely dominate the industrial
design, it is not recommended to do so. Since the network
communication with its seamless integration with the
partitioning problem is NP-hard, the probability to get a
Internet.
good solution in each retry is very small especially when
more than ten devices involved in the network.
When comparing the MMRB and MMKP algorithms., it
seems that they give a similar partitioning quality in the 8 Acknowledgments
experiments. As Karypis and Kumar [17] suggested, the
MMKP algorithm should be used to partition a graph into This work is supported by the National Science Foundation
a large number of partitions (.8). If a small number of par- of China (60474031), Science and Technology Phosphor
titions are desired, the MMRB algorithm should be used Program of Shanghai (04QMH1405) and program for
instead as it gives somewhat better results. When comparing New Century Excellent Talents in University (04-0383).
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 6, December 2007 1109
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