Switch fabric having a serial communications interface and a parallel communications interface

A switch fabric for an industrial control system, the switch fabric comprising:

• a serial communications interface for connecting a plurality of slave devices to a master device in parallel, the serial communications interface configured for transmitting information between the plurality of slave devices and the master device;
• and
• a parallel communications interface for separately connecting the plurality of slave devices to the master device, the parallel communications interface configured for simultaneously transmitting information between the plurality of slave devices and the master device, and transmitting information between individual ones of the plurality of slave devices, each one of the plurality of slave devices identifying itself to the master device using a unique identification upon connecting to the master device, the master device maintaining a routing table, wherein the routing table is updated with the unique identification for a slave device when the slave device is connected to the master device, the unique identification comprising at least one of an identifier associated with the slave device or an identifier associated with a slot that provides registration for the slave device.