ORANGE-a new class of ATM switching networks

Although the research on ATM elementary switches may be considered as close to the end, the problem of finding the optimum switching network still remains open. The main reason is that traditional switching networks (e.g., Clos switching networks) are not suitable for asynchronous environments, especially due to poor performance of last stages. Moreover, the load is not distributed equally over all switching elements inside networks of this class. In this paper a new type of switching network, referred to as polyhedral switching network is introduced. The key idea of a proposed solution is based on placing elementary switches on a sphere-shaped surface. Any set of adjacent switches forms a polygon, and the polygons, in turn, form a polyhedron. It is shown that such an arrangement is more convenient and suitable for ATM switching than switching networks known to date