Application-specific network-on-chip architecture customization via long-range link insertion

Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) represent a promising solution to complex on-chip communication problems. The NoC communication architectures considered so far are based on either completely regular or fully customized topologies. In this paper, we present a methodology to automatically synthesize an architecture where a few application-specific long-range links are inserted on top of a regular mesh network. This way, we can better exploit the benefits of both complete regularity and partial customization. Indeed, our experimental results show that inserting application-specific long-range links significantly increases the critical traffic workload at which the network state transits from a free to a congested regime. This, in turn, results in a significant reduction in the average packet latency and a major improvement in the achievable network throughput.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ICCAD
• Authors: Ümit Y. Ogras, Radu Marculescu
• Keywords: Application-specific Long-range Links, Hardware, ICCAD 2005, NoC Communication Architectures, Regular Mesh Network