Communications in a multicomputer system consist of heterogeneous traffic in which messages exhibit a variety of sizes. Network response is highly dependent on message length distribution, as reported in most network evaluation studies. Hence, router design should be optimized for dealing with heterogeneous traffic. This study analyzes the interaction amongst short and long messages in networks with bimodal length traffic: both single packet traffic (20 flits) and multipacket messages (200 flits). Router design determines the access of both traffic classes to the network resources so we have considered multiple alternatives, from the generic CT or WH static router to variations of the segment router proposed in [9], which maps the two traffic classes into two separate virtual networks. Having independent injection queues for each virtual network and adjusting the channel multiplexing policy to favour short or long messages provides good performance and added flexibility when compared to its cut-through counterpart.
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