To achieve Terabit and Petabit switching, both time (high transmission speed) and space (multi-stage interconnection network) technologies are required. We propose an Ethernet for which for both time and space are carrier sensed. We extend CSMA/CD to a TimeSpace protocol called CSMA/TS. We call the space-time transmission medium Terabit Ethernet (TbE). This space sensing CSMA/TS protocol allows routing in ether to be done by the Network Interface Card (NIC). The advantages are scalability, lower cost, and most importantly, reduced delay end-to-end. Simple analysis is given for evaluating throughput for 2-stage and 3-stage TbE networks.
Joseph Y. Hui, David A. Daniel