Globally-Synchronized Frames for Guaranteed Quality-of-Service in On-Chip Networks

Future chip multiprocessors (CMPs) may have hundreds to thousands of threads competing to access shared resources, and will require quality-of-service (QoS) support to improve system utilization. Although there has been significant work in QoS support within resources such as caches and memory controllers, there has been less attention paid to QoS support in the multi-hop on-chip networks that will form an important component in future systems. In this paper we introduce Globally-Synchronized Frames (GSF), a framework for providing guaranteed QoS in onchip networks in terms of minimum bandwidth and a maximum delay bound. The GSF framework can be easily integrated in a conventional virtual channel (VC) router without significantly increasing the hardware complexity. We rely on a fast barrier network, which is feasible in an on-chip environment, to efficiently implement GSF. Performance guarantees are verified by both analysis and simulation. According to our simulations, all concur...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ISCA
• Authors: Jae W. Lee, Man Cheuk Ng, Krste Asanovic
• Keywords: Future Chip Multiprocessors, Hardware, ISCA 2008, Multi-hop On-chip Networks, QoS Support