Load-balanced switch

A load-balanced switch is a switch architecture which guarantees 100% throughput with no central arbitration at all, at the cost of sending each packet across the crossbar twice. Load-balanced switches are a subject of research for large routers scaled past the point of practical central arbitration. A load-balanced switch is a switch architecture which guarantees 100% throughput with no central arbitration at all, at the cost of sending each packet across the crossbar twice. Load-balanced switches are a subject of research for large routers scaled past the point of practical central arbitration. Internet routers are typically built using line cards connected with a switch. Routers supporting moderate total bandwidth may use a bus as their switch, but high bandwidth routers typically use some sort of crossbar interconnection. In a crossbar, each output connects to one input, so that information can flow through every output simultaneously. Crossbars used for packet switching are typically reconfigured tens of millions of times per second. The schedule of these configurations is determined by a central arbiter, for example a Wavefront arbiter, in response to requests by the line cards to send information to one another.