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Although a bus is fundamental to most computer systems, a bus has a disadvantage:
bus hardware can only perform one transfer at a time. That is, although multiple
hardware units can attach to a given bus, at most one pair of attached units can communicate
at any time. The basic paradigm always consists of three steps: wait for exclusive
use of the bus, perform a transfer, and release the bus so another transfer can occur.
Some buses extend the paradigm by permitting multiple attached units to transfer
N bytes of data each time they obtain the bus. For situations where bus architectures
are insufficient, architects have invented alternative technologies that permit multiple
transfers to occur simultaneously. Known as switching fabrics, the technologies use a
variety of forms. Some fabrics are designed to handle a few attached units, and other
fabrics are designed to handle hundreds or thousands. Similarly, some fabrics restrict
transfers so only a few attached units can initiate transfers at the same time, and other
fabrics permit many simultaneous transfers. One of the reasons for the variety arises
from economics: higher performance (i.e., more simultaneous exchanges) can cost much
more, and the higher cost may not be justified.
Perhaps the easiest switching fabric to understand consists of a crossbar switch.
We can imagine a crossbar to be a matrix with N inputs and M outputs. The crossbar
contains N×M electronic switches that each connect an input to an output. At any time,
the crossbar can turn on switches to connect pairs of inputs and outputs as Figure 14.17
illustrates.
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