Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)

"Prof. Dally's pioneering research dramatically and permanently changed this field by introducing rigorous evaluation techniques and creative solutions to the challenge of high-performance computer system communication. This book will instantly become a canonical reference in the field of interconnection networks." -Craig Stunkel, IBM "Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks is a triple threat: comprehensive, well written and authoritative. The need for this book has grown with the increasing impact of interconnects on computer system performance and cost. It will be a great tool for students and teachers alike, and will clearly help practicing engineers build better networks." -Steve Scott, Cray Inc. "Dally and Towles use their combined three decades of experience to create a book that elucidates the theory and practice of computer interconnection networks. They derive fundamentals and enumerate design alternatives, present numerous case studies, and are not afraid to give their experienced opinions on current choices and future trends. A "must buy" for those interested in or designing interconnection networks." -Mark Hill, University of Wisconsin, Madison One of the greatest challenges faced by designers of digital systems is optimizing the communication and interconnection between system components. Interconnection networks offer an attractive and economical solution to this communication crisis and are fast becoming pervasive in digital systems. Current trends suggest that this communication bottleneck will be even more problematic when designing future generations of machines. Consequently, the anatomy of an interconnection network router and the science of interconnection network design will only grow in importance in the coming years. This book offers a detailed and comprehensive presentation of the basic principles of interconnection network design, clearly illustrating them with numerous examples and case studies. It incorporates hardware-level descriptions of concepts, allowing a designer to see all the steps of the process from abstract design to concrete implementation. Features ·Case studies throughout the book draw on extensive author experience in designing interconnection networks, providing real world examples of what works and what doesn"t. ·Tightly couples concepts with implementation costs to facilitate a deeper understanding of the tradeoffs in the design of a practical interconnection network. Online support materials for this book are available at www.mkp.com/companions/0122007514.Brian Patrick Towles is the author of 'Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)', published 2004 under ISBN 9780122007514 and ISBN 0122007514.