Addressing Scheme and Message Routing for a Networked Device

A method of routing packets in a network, the network having a topology characterized by a hierarchical structure of nodes comprising n layers including n−1 layers of switch nodes and 1 layer of computational nodes, where L represents a layer in the structure and is an integer with L=0 representing a lowest layer and L=n−1 representing a highest layer, the method comprising:

• receiving a packet at a switch node of layer L of the structure, the packet including a header with a first address comprising n groups of bits, the switch node having a second address comprising n−L groups of bits;
• and
• forwarding the packet to a node in either the layer L, the layer L+1, or the layer L−1 based on a comparison of the first address and the second address.

A method of routing packets in a network, the network having a topology characterized by a hierarchical structure of nodes comprising n layers including n−1 layers of switch nodes and 1 layer of computational nodes, where L represents a layer in the structure and is an integer with L=0 representing a lowest layer and L=n−1 representing a highest layer, the method comprising:

• transmitting a packet from a computational node of layer L to either a second computational node of layer L or to a switch node of layer L+1, the packet including a header with a first address comprising n groups of bits and the computational node having a second address comprising n groups of bits, where transmitting is based on a comparison of the first and the second address.