Modeling and parallel simulation of large ATM switch fabrics

Simulation is an essential tool in the development, testing, and performanc e evaluation of communication systems. In this paper we discuss a practical case where large ATM switches are needed and develop a cell-level simulato r to evaluate the performance of such switches. We exploit the conservative time-window algorithm for parallel simulation to reduce the simulation tim e and resolve the memory limitation problem with sequential machines. We si mulate ATM switches of sizes up to 1 k x 1 k ports. A speed-up of 7 using t en processors on a shared-memory multiprocessor is achieved.