We show that deadlocks due to dependencies on consumption channels is a fundamental problem in multicast wormhole routing. This issue of deadlocks has not been addressed in many previously proposed multicast algorithms. We also show that deadlocks on consumption channels can be avoided by using multiple classes of consumption channels and restricting the use of consumption channels by multicast messages. In addition, we present a new multicast routing algorithm, column-path, which uses the well-known e-cube algorithm for multicast routing. Therefore, this algorithm could be implemented in the existing multicomputers with minimal hardware support. We present a simulation study of the performance of Hamilton-path based multicast algorithms with the proposed column-path algorithm. Our simulations indicate that the simplistic scheme of sending one copy of a multicast message to each of its destinations exhibits good performance and that the new column-path algorithm offers higher throughput compared to the Hamilton-path based algorithms.
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