Switch fabric design for high performance IP routers: A survey

Traditionally, besides vendor product descriptions on high performance Internet Protocol (IP) router hardware (HW) architectures, materials on this subject area seldom appear in research literature. Recently, we introduced an architectural concept of HW scalability and bi-directional HW reconfigurability for high performance IP routers. Application of these two conceptual attributes enables router HW flexibility to adapt to today's IP network environment with rapid changes in capacity and traffic characteristics. We analyzed 10 switch fabrics (SFs), selected and also presented brief survey of HW architectural techniques that enable the attributes for three candidates that can serve such a router. In this paper, we present a full survey of these 10 SFs. The intention is to provide background reference material on an area not yet frequently visited in formal literature.