A packet is composed of many flits, flits do not contain additional headers. Two packets can follow different paths to their destinations. Flits are always ordered and follow the same path. This architecture allows for large packet size, small header overhead, and fine-grained resource allocation of the flits.
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ruoyul
What exactly are flits? Are they just bits in the packet?
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vrkrishn
Large network packets are broken into smaller pieces called flits (not necessarily single bits). The first flit has information about the routing of the entire packet (destination). The data is sent through the body flits as a bunch of smaller chunks. Finally, the tail flit helps to close the connection between two nodes in the network.
Packets can follow different paths to get from one node to another, but if two flits belong to the same packet, then they must follow the same route between two nodes.
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arjunh
A switch and a router aren't exactly the same thing. A switch connects units in a network, while routers connect different networks together.
As an analogy, the roads in a city are like switches in a network, while the highways connecting cities together are like the routers.
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cardiff
If a flit contains multiple bits, why does the slide say it is a "flow control digit"? I was under the impression that if you break up a packet into a few pieces, each piece would contain more than a digit, but perhaps my understanding of the word "digit" in this case is incomplete...
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ron
A flow control digit. It's like when a garden hose is spewing out water, and you stick your finger into it.
I'm pretty sure 'digit' isn't interpreted as a single number in this case. According to this, flits can range in size from 16-512 bits depending on the implementation.
Flits can in fact be further decomposed into 'phits' (physical transfer digits), which are even smaller (1-64 bits), defined as the unit of data transferred across a network channel per clock cycle.
A packet is composed of many flits, flits do not contain additional headers. Two packets can follow different paths to their destinations. Flits are always ordered and follow the same path. This architecture allows for large packet size, small header overhead, and fine-grained resource allocation of the flits.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
What exactly are flits? Are they just bits in the packet?
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
Large network packets are broken into smaller pieces called flits (not necessarily single bits). The first flit has information about the routing of the entire packet (destination). The data is sent through the body flits as a bunch of smaller chunks. Finally, the tail flit helps to close the connection between two nodes in the network.
Packets can follow different paths to get from one node to another, but if two flits belong to the same packet, then they must follow the same route between two nodes.
This comment was marked helpful 2 times.
A switch and a router aren't exactly the same thing. A switch connects units in a network, while routers connect different networks together.
As an analogy, the roads in a city are like switches in a network, while the highways connecting cities together are like the routers.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
If a flit contains multiple bits, why does the slide say it is a "flow control digit"? I was under the impression that if you break up a packet into a few pieces, each piece would contain more than a digit, but perhaps my understanding of the word "digit" in this case is incomplete...
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
A flow control digit. It's like when a garden hose is spewing out water, and you stick your finger into it.I'm pretty sure 'digit' isn't interpreted as a single number in this case. According to this, flits can range in size from 16-512 bits depending on the implementation. Flits can in fact be further decomposed into 'phits' (physical transfer digits), which are even smaller (1-64 bits), defined as the unit of data transferred across a network channel per clock cycle.This comment was marked helpful 1 times.