Reliability Analysis of Fault-Tolerant Irregular Multi-Stage Interconnection Networks

The design of a suitable interconnection network for inter-processor communication is one of the key issues that determines the overall system performance. The reliability of these networks and their ability to continue operating despite failures are major concerns in determining the overall system performance.. The reliabilities of the Modified Double Tree (MDOT), Four-Tree (FT) and Modified Four-tree (MFT) multi-stage interconnection networks have been calculated in terms of the Upper and Lower bounds of Mean time to failure (MTTF). The MDOT is a multipath network with limited fault tolerance. The FT network, has been designed using MDOT, is an irregular, fault tolerant and multipath network. MFT network is the modified form of FT, is an irregular, fault tolerant, more cost effective and is as reliable as the FT network. Hence, it can be concluded that MFT is an improvement not only in terms cost over FT, but it enjoys the same reliability as FT.