Switching fabrics first appeared in telephone exchanges, where there was a need to interconnect many pairs of telephones installed in the network. Due to the large number of connected subscribers and int- exchange links, switching fabrics in telephone exchanges have to serve a great number of input and output ports. Because of the scale, large switching fabrics were constructed from smaller ones. The way of building switching fabrics from elements of smaller capacity and different characteristics of switching fabrics topologies has been for a long time a rich area of theoretical research. The...

Switching fabrics first appeared in telephone exchanges, where there was a need to interconnect many pairs of telephones installed in the network. Due to the large number of connected subscribers and int- exchange links, switching fabrics in telephone exchanges have to serve a great number of input and output ports. Because of the scale, large switching fabrics were constructed from smaller ones. The way of building switching fabrics from elements of smaller capacity and different characteristics of switching fabrics topologies has been for a long time a rich area of theoretical research. The...