The structure of these two sorting networks are very similar.

The full operation of a simple sorting network is shown below.

It is also used as a construction method for building a sorting network.

The green and blue boxes combine to form the entire sorting network.

Despite the simplicity of the model, sorting network theory is surprisingly deep and complex.

For 1 to 8 inputs optimal sorting networks are known.

This is the most common representation of a bitonic sorting network.

Models such as Boolean circuits and sorting networks are used.

A sorting network consists of two items: comparators and wires.

The following is a bitonic sorting network with 16 inputs:

The zero-one principle states that a sorting network is valid if it can sort all 2 sequences of 0s and 1s.

Finding sorting networks with size cn log n for small c remains a fundamental open problem.

Some important progress in designing optimal sorting network is done using genetic algorithm technique as well.

The most common implementation on GPUs is using sorting networks.

The same team of authors developed the optimal Ajtai-Komlós-Szemerédi sorting network.

Similarly, a sorting network can be seen as a computer network: each comparator is a computer.

His thesis focused on analysis of the shellsort sorting algorithm and sorting networks.

A network of wires and comparators that will correctly sort all possible inputs into ascending order is called a sorting network.

The pairwise sorting network has the same cost (number of comparators) and delay as the odd-even mergesort network.

Sorting networks (compare)

The resulting sorting networks consist of comparators and have a delay of , where is the number of items to be sorted.

As an example, a sorting network can be used to compute majority by designating the middle wire as an output wire:

Since there are sorting networks which can be constructed in AC, this shows that the majority function is in CC.

While it is easy to prove the validity of some sorting networks (like the insertion/bubble sorter), it is not always so easy.

A sorting network is an abstract mathematical model of a network of wires and comparator modules that is used to sort a sequence of numbers.