ingress ports to receive values into the system;

egress ports to transmit, from the system, the values received at the ingress ports;

a plurality of nodes, each node comprising a plurality of input and output ports for accepting and transmitting values, respectively, and a switch for selecting an output port to output a value received on an input port;

each node being associated with an ingress stage, a center stage or an egress stage, where:

every node in a stage is the same distance from the ingress ports as the other nodes in the stage,

the input ports of the nodes in a stage receive values from either the output ports of another stage or the ingress ports,

the output ports of the nodes in a stage transmit values to either the input ports of another stage or the egress ports,

an ingress stage refers to those stages that are closer to the ingress ports than the egress ports,

an egress stage refers to those stages that are closer to the egress ports than the ingress ports, and

a center stage refers to the stage that is equidistant from the egress ports and the ingress ports;

each node being further associated with an ingress set, an egress set or a center set where:

all of the nodes in a set are in the same stage,

an ingress set refers to a set in an ingress stage,

an egress set refers to a set in an egress stage,

a center set refers to a set in the center stage,

the number of nodes in an ingress set increases with the set's distance from the ingress ports, and

the number of nodes in an egress set increases with the set's distance from the egress ports;

each of the nodes of an ingress set being configured such that information transmitted by the output ports of the set during a clock cycle is intended for the same egress set.