The Boeing Company

Hughes Aircraft Company

Daniel H Wells

Ramin Nobakht

A network for a large number of processing elements utilizes a trellis ring architecture to provide an efficient and fault tolerant data routing system. The processing elements (which may be chip-based processors, circuit cards, unit level assemblies, or computing devices) are interconnected together in an endless ring structure. In addition to the ring arrangement, the processing elements are interconnected via primary and additional trellis connections that reduce the average and/or the maximum number of network node hops between two processing elements in the network architecture.

Trellis ring network architecture

A system for communicating signals within a digital network without the aid of an array of separate signal lines or of the system data bus. The network communication system 10 of the present invention is operative in accordance with a time-sliced protocol to communicate signal information among a set of digital modules 1. The communication system 10 includes a driver network for transmitting signal information to a first interface circuit 14 in communication with a first 22 of said modules during a selected interval of an interval cycle. The first interface circuit 14 includes an input network 44 for receiving the transmitted information during the selected interval. The inventive network communication system 10 further includes a kickstart circuit 30 for initiating an interval cycle upon the transmission of signal information within the network 10, or upon the execution of a maximum (Nth) interval of a preceding interval cycle.

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Redondo Beach, CA, United States of America

Daniel H Wells