Bandwidth, framing and error detection in communications between multi-processor clusters of multi-cluster computer systems

1. An interconnection controller, comprising:

an intra-cluster interface configured for coupling with intra-cluster links to a plurality of local nodes arranged in a point-to-point architecture in a local cluster, the local nodes including local processors;

an inter-cluster interface configured for coupling with an inter-cluster link to a non-local interconnection controller in a non-local cluster;

encapsulation logic configured to receive intra-cluster packets from the local nodes via the intra-cluster links and to encapsulate the intra-cluster packets as inter-cluster packets for transmission on the inter-cluster link; and

a module comprising a remote transmission buffer, the module configured to:

receive inter-cluster packets from the encapsulation logic;

store inter-cluster packets in the remote transmission buffer;

forward inter-cluster packets for transmission on the inter-cluster link;

determine when the remote transmission buffer is empty;

generate a special packet for transmission on the inter-cluster link when the buffer is empty; and

forward the special packet for transmission on the inter-cluster link without storing the special packet in the remote transmission buffer.

2. The interconnection controller of claim 1 , wherein the special packet comprises a control character.

3. The interconnection controller of claim 1 , the module further comprising a reception buffer, the module being further configured to:

receive a special packet from the inter-cluster link; and

drop the special packet without storing the special packet in the reception buffer.

4. The interconnection controller of claim 1 , wherein the module is configured to determine when the transmission buffer is empty by inspecting a single buffer space of the transmission buffer.

5. The interconnection controller of claim 1 , wherein the transmission buffer is an asynchronous buffer that is configured to receive inter-cluster packets from the encapsulation logic at a first clock speed and forwards the inter-cluster packets at a second clock speed.

6. The interconnection controller of claim 1 , wherein the module is configured to initialize the inter-cluster link and use information obtained during an initialization process to perform de-skewing operations on packets received on the inter-cluster link.

7. The interconnection controller of claim 1 , further comprising a local transmitter configured to:

receive intra-cluster packets from the from the local nodes via the intra-cluster links;

store intra-cluster packets in a local transmission buffer;

forward intra-cluster packets for transmission on the intra-cluster links;

determine when there are no valid intra-cluster packets to transmit;

generate NOP packets when there are no valid intra-cluster packets to transmit;

forward the NOP packets to the local transmission buffer; and

transmit the NOP packets on the intra-cluster links.

8. The interconnection controller of claim 1 , further comprising a serializer for serializing inter-cluster packets and for performing bit conversion of inter-cluster packets.

9. An integrated circuit comprising the interconnection controller of claim 1 .

10. A set of semiconductor processing masks representative of at least a portion of the interconnection controller of claim 1 .

11. At least one computer-readable medium having data structures stored therein representative of the interconnection controller of claim 1 .

12. The interconnection controller of claim 8 , wherein the bit conversion encodes clock data in the inter-cluster packets.

13. The interconnection controller of claim 8 , wherein the bit conversion comprises 8b/10b conversion.

14. The integrated circuit of claim 9 , wherein the integrated circuit comprises an application-specific integrated circuit.

15. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the data structures comprise a simulatable representation of the interconnection controller.

16. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the data structures comprise a code description of the interconnection controller.

17. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 15 , wherein the simulatable representation comprises a netlist.

18. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the code description corresponds to a hardware description language.

19. A computer system, comprising:

a first cluster including a first plurality of processors and a first interconnection controller, the first plurality of processors and the first interconnection controller interconnected by first point-to-point intra-cluster links, the first interconnection controller comprising:

encapsulation logic configured to receive intra-cluster packets from the first plurality of processors via the first point-to-point intra-cluster links and to encapsulate the intra-cluster packets as high-speed link packets for transmission on an inter-cluster link; and

a first module comprising a transmission buffer, the first module configured to:

receive high-speed link packets from the encapsulation logic;

store high-speed link packets in a transmission buffer;

forward high-speed link packets for transmission on the inter-cluster link;

determine an empty condition indicating that the transmission buffer is empty;

generate a special packet responsive to the empty condition; and

forward the special packet to the inter-cluster link without storing the special packet in the transmission buffer.

20. The computer system of claim 19 , further comprising:

a second cluster including a second plurality of processors and a second interconnection controller, the second plurality of processors and the second interconnection controller interconnected by second point-to-point intra-cluster links, the second interconnection controller comprising a second module configured to:

receive high-speed link packets from the inter-cluster link;

store the high-speed link packets in a reception buffer,

receive the special packet; and

drop the special packet without storing the special packet in the reception buffer.

21. The computer system of claim 19 , wherein the special packet comprises a control character.

22. A computer system comprising a plurality of processor clusters interconnected by a plurality of point-to-point inter-cluster links, each processor cluster comprising nodes including a plurality of local processors and an interconnection controller interconnected by a plurality of point-to-point intra-cluster links, communications within a cluster being made via an intra-cluster protocol that uses intra-cluster packets, wherein the interconnection controller in each cluster is operable to map locally-generated communications directed to others of the clusters to the point-to-point inter-cluster links and to map remotely-generated communications directed to the local nodes to the point-to-point intra-cluster links, communications between clusters being made via an inter-cluster protocol that uses inter-cluster packets, an inter-cluster packet encapsulating at least one intra-cluster packet, each interconnection controller configured to generate and transmit a special packet on an inter-cluster link when the interconnection controller has no valid inter-cluster packets to send, the special packet not being stored in a transmission buffer prior to being transmitted on the inter-cluster link.

23. The computer system of claim 22 , wherein the special packet comprises a control character.

24. The computer system of claim 22 , each interconnection controller being further configured to receive a special packet, but not to store the special packet in a reception buffer for storing valid inter-cluster packets.

25. The computer system of claim 22 , wherein the transmission buffer is an asynchronous buffer that receives inter-cluster packets at a first clock speed and forwards the inter-cluster packets at a second clock speed for transmission on the inter-cluster link.

26. The computer system of claim 22 , wherein each interconnection controller is further configured to generate a NOP packet when the interconnection controller has no valid intra-cluster packets to send.

27. The computer system of claim 26 , wherein each interconnection controller is further configured to forward the NOP packet to a local transmission buffer to await transmission on an intra-cluster link.

28. A computer-implemented method for decreasing latency in a computer system comprising a plurality of clusters, each cluster including a plurality of local nodes and an interconnection controller interconnected by point-to-point intra-cluster links, communications between the local nodes and the interconnection controller made via an intra-cluster protocol using intra-cluster packets, the interconnection controller of each cluster interconnected by inter-cluster links with the interconnection controller of other clusters, the computer-implemented method comprising:

forming inter-cluster packets by encapsulating intra-cluster packets;

storing the inter-cluster packets in a remote transmission buffer of a first interconnection controller;

transmitting the inter-cluster packets to a second interconnection controller;

storing received inter-cluster packets in a reception buffer of the second interconnection controller;

determining that the remote transmission buffer is empty;

generating a control character in response to a determination that the remote transmission buffer is empty;

transmitting the control character to the second interconnection controller; and

dropping the control character without storing the control character in the reception buffer.

29. The computer-implemented method of claim 28 , further comprising:

performing an initialization sequence that establishes a characteristic skew pattern between data lanes of the inter-cluster link;

encoding clock data in each symbol transmitted on the inter-cluster link;

recovering clock data from each symbol received on the inter-cluster link; and

applying the characteristic skew pattern to correct for skew between data lanes of the inter-cluster link.

30. The computer-implemented method of claim 28 , further comprising:

determining that there are no valid intra-cluster packets for transmission on the point-to-point intra-cluster links;

generating NOP packets;

storing the NOP packets in a local transmission buffer; and

transmitting the NOP packets to local nodes on the point-to-point intra-cluster links.