Importance

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Abstract

A unique trace word is assigned to each incoming signal routed by a sliced switch fabric having two or more parallel switches. The unique trace word is encoded into each incoming signal following an overall format that ensures that each sliced trace word (i.e., the subset of bits in the overall format routed by each parallel switch) also uniquely identifies each incoming signal. In this way, the present invention ensures that the switch configuration of each and every parallel switch can always be verified. As such, any improper switch configuration can be detected, including those misconfigurations in which all but one of the parallel switches are correctly configured as well as those misconfigurations in which all of the parallel switches are identically, but incorrectly configured. In a preferred embodiment, the overall format is defined in terms of a table, in which each column comprises all of the bits of the unique trace word and the bits are shifted cyclically between pairs of columns to reduce the number of rows of the table that need to be processed before all of the bits in the unique trace word are available in the outgoing signal transmitted from the sliced switch fabric.

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First Claim