Frame occupancy-based round-robin matching scheme for input-queued packet switches

The use of virtual output queues (VOQ) in input-queued (IQ) switches can eliminate the head-of-line (HOL) blocking phenomenon, which limits switching performance. An effective matching scheme for IQ switches with VOQ must provide high throughput under admissible traffic patterns while keeping the implementation feasible. This paper proposes a matching scheme for IQ switches that provides high throughput under uniform and a nonuniform traffic pattern, called unbalanced. The proposed matching scheme, FORM, is primarily based on round-robin selection and the captured-frame concept. We show via simulation that this scheme delivers over 99% throughput under unbalanced traffic and retains the high performance under uniform traffic that round-robin matching schemes are known to offer.