A pipeline-based approach for maximal-sized matching scheduling in input-buffered switches

This letter proposes an innovative pipeline-based maximal-sized matching sc heduling approach, called PMM, for input-buffered switches. It dramatically relaxes the timing constraint for arbitration with a maximal matching sche me. In the PMM approach, arbitration operates in a pipelined manner. Each s ubscheduler is allowed to take more than one time slot for its matching, Ev ery time slot, one of them provides the matching result. The subscheduler c an adopt a pre-existing efficient round-robin-based maximal matching algori thm, We show that PMM provides 100% throughput under uniform traffic since it preserves a desynchronization effect of the round-robin pointers as in t he preexisting algorithm, In addition, PMM maintains fairness for best-effo rt traffic due to the round-robin-based arbitration.