Note: Many topics at this site are reduced versions of the text in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications." Search results will not be as extensive as a search of the book's CD-ROM.

Switch fabrics and buses are pathways on computing and network devices that provide chip-to-chip, adapter-to-adapter, or device-to-device pathways for transferring information within computing and network devices.

This topic continues in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications" with a discussion of the following:

• Where switching fabrics are implemented, including servers, multiprocessing systems, telephony switches, and networking switches.
• Bus and switch design overview
• PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect)
• Non-blocking and wirespeed devices
• Shared memory architectures
• Shared bus architectures
• Switching (crossbar) fabrics (point-to-point switching fabrics)
• The RACE switching fabric by Mercury Computer Systems
• Bus standards
• PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect)
• PCI-X (PCI extension)
• PCI bottleneck problems
• Virtual PCI on switching fabrics
• CPCI (CompactPCI)
• VMEbus (Versa Module Eurocard bus)
• Mezzanines (Daughterboards)
• Switching architectures
• Use of LVDS (low-voltage differential signaling)
• RapidIO switched-fabric interconnect architecture for chip-to-chip- and board-to-board- level system designs
• Fibre Channel and Qlogic's SANbox multistage cross-connect fabric
• InfiniBand
• Other bus and switching standards, including I2O, VI Architecture, and CSIX (Common Switch Interface)

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