System and method for preventing deadlock in richly-connected multi-processor computer system using dynamic assignment of virtual channels

• Main Authors: GODIWALA NITIN, REILLY MATTHEW H, LEONARD JUDSON S
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 10.08.2010
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

Systems and methods for preventing deadlock in richly-connected multiprocessor computer system using dynamic assignment of virtual channels. Deadlock is prevented in a multiprocessor computer system having a large plurality of processing nodes interconnected by a defined interconnection topology. Each link in the interconnection topology is associated with a set of virtual channels. Each virtual channel has corresponding communication buffers to store communication data and each virtual channel has an associated virtual channel identifier. Each communication between a source processing node and a target processing node is assigned an initial virtual channel to convey the communication from the source processing node. At an intermediate processing node, a different virtual channel is assigned to convey the communication toward the target processing node, in accordance with pre-defined rules to avoid a cycle of dependency of communication buffer resources.