A Knockout Switch For Variable-Length Packets

The Knockout Switch is a new packet switch architecture recently proposed for Local Area Networks, multiprocessing, and local or toll interconnects. Here we describe an approach to extend the original Knockout Switch to work with variable-length packets, which is conveniently dubbed the "Knockout II". As in the original Knockout Switch, the Knockout II architecture also employs an input broadcast bus arrangement to achieve complete internal cross-connection, i.e. NXN. Consequently, there is no congestion inside the switch fabric other than the unavoidable conflict of multiple simultaneous packets destined for the same output port.