Abstract: A method and apparatus for establishing deadlock free routing in a bi-directional, multi-stage, inter-connected, cross-point based packet switch, particularly, though not exclusively employed within a high speed packet network of a massively parallel processing system. Specifically, a group of sets of restricted routes traversing a source, intermediate and destination switch chip are determined by establishing a number of route restrictions from each source switch in the network and determining a number of routes restricted between each source-destination pair of switch chips therein, such that the standard deviation for the number of routes left unrestricted between all source-destination pairs of switch chips for the packet network is minimized.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for establishing deadlock free routing in a bi-directional, multi-stage, inter-connected, cross-point based packet switch, particularly, though not exclusively employed within a high speed packet network of a massively parallel processing system. Specifically, a group of sets of restricted routes traversing a source, intermediate and destination switch chip are determined by establishing a number of route restrictions from each source switch in the network and determining a number of routes restricted between each source-destination pair of switch chips therein, such that the standard deviation for the number of routes left unrestricted between all source-destination pairs of switch chips for the packet network is minimized.

Abstract: Apparatus and an accompanying method for establishing deadlock-free routing in a large bi-directional multi-stage inter-connected cross-point based packet switch, particularly, though not exclusively, that employed within a high speed packet network of a massively parallel processing system (400). Specifically, in selecting routes for inclusion within route tables (320, 360, 380) contained within the system, the entire network is effectively partitioned such that certain routes would be prohibited in order to isolate packet traffic that would flow solely between nodes in one partition, e.g. system half (503), of the system from packet traffic that would flow between nodes in the other partition, e.g. another system half (507). In that regard, to pick routes for packets that are to transit between nodes situated in a common partition of the system, those routes that contain a path(s) (524, 544) passing through the other system partition would be prohibited.