CSE 4255: Telecommunication

Lecture 3: Switching

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Why Switching?
A network is a set of connected devices. Some of the
conventional ways of interconnecting devices are:
a) Point-to point connection between devices as in a mesh
topology.
b) Connection between a central device and every other device as
in star topology.
c) Bus topology – not practical if the devices are at great
distances.
 All these techniques require extensive cabling,
dependence on a central server or a central bus.
 The solution to this interconnectivity problem is
switching. 2
Switching Network:
A switched network consists of a series of interlinked nodes, called
switches.
 Switches are devices capable of creating temporary connections
between two or more devices linked to the switch.
 In a switched network, some of these nodes are connected to the end
systems (computers or telephones, for example). Others are used only
for routing.

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Types of Switching Network:

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Circuit Switching

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 Circuit Switching
 Circuit switching takes place at the physical layer.
 The actual communication in a circuit-switched network
requires three phases: connection setup, data transfer, and
connection teardown.
 Before starting communication, the stations must make a
reservation for the resources to be used during the
communication.
 Data transferred between the two stations are a continuous
flow.
 There is no addressing involved during data transfer but there
is end-to-end addressing used during the setup phase.
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Message Switching

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Message Switching
 With message switching there is no need to establish a
dedicated path between two stations.
 When a station sends a message, the destination address
is appended to the message.
 Each node receives the entire message, stores it in its
buffer, and then transmits the message to the next node.
 A message will only be delivered if the next hop and the
link connecting it are both available, otherwise it’ll be
stored indefinitely.
 This type of network is called a store-and-forward
network. 8
Packet Switching

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Packet Switching
 There are two methods of packet switching: Datagram and virtual
circuit.
 In both packet switching methods, a message is broken into small
parts, called packets.
 Each packet is tagged with appropriate source and destination
addresses.
 Since packets have a strictly defined maximum length, they can be
stored in main memory instead of disk, therefore access delay and
cost are minimized.
 Also the transmission speeds, between nodes, are optimized.
 With current technology, packets are generally accepted onto the
network on a first-come, first-served basis. If the network becomes
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overloaded, packets are delayed or discarded (``dropped'').

Types of Switches
 We use switches in circuit-switched and packet-
switched networks.
 Circuit Switching:
 Spaced Division Switching
 Crossbar Switch
 Multi-stage Switch
 Time Division Switching
 TSI: Time-slot Interchange
 TDM bus

 Packet Switching:
 Banyan Switch
Space-division switch
 In space division switching, the paths in the circuit
are separated with each other spatially.
 Different ongoing connections, at a same instant of
time, uses different switching paths, which are
separated spatially.
 Some of the space switches are
1. Crossbar switch
2. Multi-stage switch
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Crossbar Switch
 A crossbar switch connects n inputs to m outputs in a grid, using
electronic microswitches (transistors) at each crosspoint.
 As all the stations are allowed to be connected with all possible
connections as long as the called party is free, this Crossbar Switching
is called the Non-Blocking.

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Limitations
 The major limitation of this design is the number of
crosspoints required.
 To connect n inputs to m outputs using a crossbar switch
requires n x m crosspoints.
 For example, to connect 1000 inputs to 1000 outputs
requires a switch with 1,000,000 crosspoints.
 A crossbar with this number of crosspoints is impractical.
 Such a switch is also inefficient because statistics show
that, in practice, fewer than 25 percent of the crosspoints
are in use at any given time. The rest are idle.
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Multistage Switch-Why?
 The solution to the limitations of the crossbar switch is the
multistage switch, which combines crossbar switches in
several (normally three) stages.
 In a single crossbar switch, only one row or column (one
path) is active for any connection. So we need N x N
crosspoints.
 Ifwe can allow multiple paths inside the switch, we can
decrease the number of crosspoints.
 Each crosspoint in the middle stage can be accessed by
multiple crosspoints in the first or third stage.

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 Multistage Switch Structure
 To design a three-stage switch, we follow these
steps:
1. We divide the N input lines into groups, each of
n lines. For each group, we use one crossbar of
size n x k, where k is the number of crossbars in
the middle stage. In other words, the first stage
has N/n crossbars of n x k crosspoints.
2. We use k crossbars, each of size (N/n) x (N/n) in
the middle stage.
3. We use N/n crossbars, each of size k x n at the
third stage.
 We can calculate the total number of crosspoints
as follows:
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N/n ( n x k ) + k ( N/n x N/n ) + N/n ( n x k ) = 2kN + k(N/n)2

 Example: Multistage Switch
Design a three-stage, 200 × 200 switch (N = 200) with k = 4 and n = 20.

Solution
In the first stage we have N/n or 10 crossbars,
each of size 20 × 4.
In the second stage, we have 4 crossbars,
each of size 10 × 10.
In the third stage, we have 10 crossbars,
each of size 4 × 20.

The total number of crosspoints is 2kN + k(N/n)2, or 2000 crosspoints.

This is 5 percent of the number of crosspoints in a single-stage switch

(200 × 200 = 40,000).

8.17
Blocking or Non-blocking
 Blocking
 Blocking refers to times when one input cannot be connected to an output
because there is no path available between them-all the possible
intermediate switches are occupied.
 In a single-stage switch, blocking does not occur because every
combination of input and output has its own crosspoint; there is always a
path.
 In a multistage switch, The small number of crossbars at the middle stage
creates blocking; if k < n , the switch is blocked.
 Non-blocking
 Non-blocking permits all stations to connect (in pairs) at once.
 Clos investigated the condition of nonblocking in multistage switches and
came up with the following formula.
 According to the Clos criterion: n = (N/2)1/2
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k > =2n – 1
 Example- Non-blocking
Redesign the previous three-stage, 200 × 200 switch, using the Clos criteria with a minimum
number of crosspoints.
Solution
We let n = (200/2)1/2, or n = 10.
We calculate k = 2n − 1 = 19.
In the first stage, we have 200/10, or 20, crossbars,
each with 10 × 19 crosspoints.
In the second stage, we have 19 crossbars,
each with 20 × 20 crosspoints.
In the third stage, we have 20 crossbars
each with 19 × 10 crosspoints.

The total number of crosspoints is

20(10 × 19) + 19(10 × 10) + 20(19 ×10) = 15200. 8.19
Time-Division Switch
 Time-divisionswitching uses time-division
multiplexing (TDM) inside a switch.
 There are two most popular technology used in
TDM:
1. The time-slot interchange (TSI)
2. The TDM bus

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Time-slot Interchange
 Consider a system connecting four input lines to four output lines. Imagine that each
input line wants to send data to an output line according to the following pattern:
1  3, 2  4, 3  1, 4  2.

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Structure of TSI
 TSI consisting of random access
memory (RAM) with several memory
locations.
 The size of each location is the same
as the size of a single time slot.
 The number of locations is the same
as the number of inputs (in most
cases, the numbers of inputs and
outputs are equal).
 The RAM fills up with incoming data
from time slots in the order received.
 Slots are then sent out in an order
based on the decisions of a control 22

unit.
TDM BUS
 The input and output lines are connected
to a high speed bus through input and
output gates (microswitches).
 Only one input gate is closed during one
time slot and the same time slot only one
output gate is closed.
 This pair of gates allows a burst of data
to be transferred from one specific input
line to one specific output line using the
bus.
 The control unit opens and closes the
gates according to switching need. 23
Comparison Between Time and Space Switches
 Space-Division Switching
 The advantage of space-division switching is that it is
instantaneous.
 Its disadvantage is the number of crosspoints required to
make space-division switching acceptable in terms of
blocking.

 Time-Division Switching
 The advantage of time-division switching is that it needs
no crosspoints.
 Its disadvantage, in the case of TSI, is that processing each
connection creates delays. Each time slot must be stored 24

by the RAM, then retrieved and passed on.

 Time-Space-Time (TST) Switch
 A simple TST switch that consists of two time
stages and one space stage and has 12 inputs and 12
outputs.
 Instead of one time-division switch, it divides the
inputs into three groups (of four inputs each) and
directs them to three time-slot interchanges.
 The result is that the average delay is one-third of
what would result from using one time-slot
interchange to handle all 12 inputs.
 The last stage is a mirror image of the first stage.
 The middle stage is a space- division switch
(crossbar) that connects the TSI groups to allow
connectivity between all possible input and output
pairs (e.g., to connect input 3 of the first group to
output 7 of the second group) 25
TST Switch: Example-1
 We need a three-stage time-space-time switch with N = 100. We
use 10 TSIs at the first and third stages and 4 crossbars at the
middle stage.
a) Draw the configuration diagram.
b) Calculate the total number of crosspoints.
c) Calculate the total number of memory locations we need for the
TSIs.
b) The total number of cross points = 4(10 × 10) =400
c) Each time slot must be stored by the RAM
In first stage there each TSI has 10 input to multiplexer so the number of slots is 10
Total of slot number in first stage = 10*10=100
Also total of slot number in third stage = 10*10=100
Total number of memory locations we need for the TSIs= 100+100 =200
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Banyan Switch
 A banyan switch is a multistage switch with
microswitches at each stage that route the
packets based on the output port
represented as a binary string.
 For n inputs and n outputs, we have log2n
stages with n/2 microswitches at each stage.
 The first stage routes the packet based on
the high-order bit of the binary string.
 The second stage routes the packet based on
the second high-order bit, and so on.
 Here, eight inputs and eight outputs. The
number of stages is log2(8) = 3.
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Banyan Switch

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