METHOD TO ROUTE PACKETS IN A DISTRIBUTED DIRECT INTERCONNECT NETWORK

The present invention provides a method and apparatus to route data packets across a torus or higher radix topology that has low latency, increased throughput and traffic distribution to avoid hot spots development. Disclosed is a method of routing packets in a distributed direct interconnect network from a source node to a destination node comprising the steps of: discovering all nodes and associated ports; updating the database to include the nodes and ports in the network topology; calculating the shortest path from every output port on each node to every other node in the topology; segmenting each packet into flits at the output port of the source node; as the flits are segmented, distributing said flits along the shortest path from each output port on the source node to the destination node using wormhole switching, whereby the packets are distributed along alternate maximum disjoint routes in the network topology; and re-assembling and re-ordering the packets at the destination node so that the packets accord with their original order/form.