INTELLIGENT BUS EXTENDER CROSSBAR NETWORK

THIS PROPOSAL DESCRIBES A RESEARCH PROGRAM TO INVESTIGATE THE PERFORMANCE AND FEASIBILITY OF A NEW TYPE OF LOW COST, HIGH PERFORMANCE OPTICAL INTERCONNECTION NETWORK CALLED AN INTELLIGENT BUS EXTENDER CROSSBAR NETWORK (IBECN). THE NETWORK PROVIDES GREATLY ENHANCED PERFORMANCE IN DISTRIBUTEDWORKSTATION COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS, WHILE RETAINING THE GENERAL FEATURES AND CAPABILITIES OF STANDARD COMPUTER BACKPLANE BUSES SUCH AS VMEBUS. A BUS EXTENDER COPIES THE INSTANTANEOUS STATE OF THE BACKPLANE BUS IN ONE WORKSTATION TO A BUS IN ANOTHER WORKSTATION. BY COMBINING THE BUS EXTENDER WITH AN INTELLIGENT CROSSBAR (HAVING A FIFO BUFFER,DESTINATION ROUTING, AND AN ELECTRONIC CROSSBAR SWITCHING MATRIX), THE IBECN CAN TRANSFER DATA BETWEEN MANY PAIRS OF BACKPLANES AT THE FULL BUS BANDWIDTH OVER AN INTERCONNECTIONDISTANCE OF 2 KM. THE PROPOSED SYSTEM AIMS AT A PERFORMANCELEVEL (200 MBITS/S) THAT IS MUCH BETTER THAN LANS, YET MUCH CHEAPER THAN GIGABIT OPTICAL NETWORKS. IN THIS PHASE ISBIR STUDY, WE WILL EXTEND BACKPLANE PROTOCOLS TO WORK WITH THE NETWORK, DEVELOP OPERATIONAL SPECIFICATIONS, COMPLETE A HIGH LEVEL DESIGN, HARDWARE DESIGN AND SOFTWARE FUNCTIONAL DESIGN, ANALYZE THE PERFORMANCE AND SIMULATE THE IBECN. FINALLY WE WILL GENERALIZE THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES TO OTHER STANDARD BACKPLANE BUSSES SUCH AS MULTIBUS II, NUBUS, FUTUREBUS, ETC. A PROTOTYPE SYSTEM WILL BE DEVELOPED UNDER PHASE II.