Performance of buffered multistage interconnection networks in case of packet multicasting

Multistage Banyan networks are frequently proposed as connections in multiprocessor systems. There exist several studies to determine the performance of networks in which messages are unicasted. (One processor sends a message to one and only one other processor.) In this paper, a timed Petri net model is used to derive the performance of buffered Banyan networks, in which messages may also be multicasted (One processor can send a message to more than one other processor). We consider a Banyan network with 2/spl times/2-switches and the two cases of complete and partial broadcasting within the switching elements, An algorithm is presented to calculate the destination distribution in all network stages for arbitrary destination patterns of incoming uniform packet traffic. Thus, the automatic generation of timed Petri net models is possible for arbitrary destination patterns of the packets. The dependency upon the network size is also considered.