Fully-connected networks with local connections

Abstract

Fully-connected mesh networks with local connections are described. Each connector links only nearest neighbors of the node lattice and carries enough passive pass-through vias to provide direct one-to-one links between all the nodes. If the nodes form a one-dimensional ring, then each connector must contain at least N(N−1)/2 physical channels. However, if the nodes are arranged in a d-dimensional hyper-torus, the number of channels per connector drops to N(N ^1/d−1)/2, which scales much more favorably at large N. Such arrangements can provide fully-meshed connectivity when parts of the network are physically inaccessible or when the network needs to be scaled up in a modular fashion.