An automated technique for topology and route generation of application specific on-chip interconnection networks

Abstract

Network-on-chip (NoC) has been proposed as a solution to the communication challenges of system-on-chip (SoC) design in nanoscale technologies. Application specific SoC design offers the opportunity for incorporating custom NoC architectures that are more suitable for a particular application, and do not necessarily conform to regular topologies. Custom NoC design in nanoscale technologies must address performance requirements, power consumption and physical layout considerations. This paper presents a novel three phase technique that i) generates a performance aware layout of the SoC, ii) maps the cores of the SoC to routers, and iii) generates a unique route for every trace that satisfies the performance and architectural constraints. We present an analysis of the quality of the results of the proposed technique by experimentation with realistic benchmarks.