Omega network

The manner in which these switches are set determines the connection paths available in the network at any given time.

In destination-tag routing, switch settings are determined solely by the message destination.

The next-most significant bit of the tag is used to set the switch in the next stage, and so on until the final output has been selected.

In multiprocessing, omega networks may be used as connectors between the CPUs and their shared memory, in order to decrease the probability that the CPU-to-memory connection becomes a bottleneck.

This class of networks has been built into the Illinois Cedar Multiprocessor, into the IBM RP3, and into the NYU Ultracomputer[citation needed].