An 0(n log n) sorting network

  • Authors:
  • M. Ajtai;J. Komlós;E. Szemerédi

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-

  • Venue:
  • STOC '83 Proceedings of the fifteenth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing
  • Year:
  • 1983

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe a sorting network of size 0(n log n) and depth 0(log n). A natural way of sorting is through consecutive halvings: determine the upper and lower halves of the set, proceed similarly within the halves, and so on. Unfortunately, while one can halve a set using only 0(n) comparisons, this cannot be done in less than log n (parallel) time, and it is known that a halving network needs (½)n log n comparisons. It is possible, however, to construct a network of 0(n) comparisons which halves in constant time with high accuracy. This procedure (&egr;-halving) and a derived procedure (&egr;-nearsort) are described below, and our sorting network will be centered around these elementary steps.