Design of an Energy-Efficient Asynchronous NoC and Its Optimization Tools for Heterogeneous SoCs

作者：Gebhardt Daniel^*; You Junbok; Stevens Kenneth S

来源：IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, 2011, 30(9): 1387-1399.

DOI：10.1109/TCAD.2011.2149870

• Application-specific
• asynchronous design
• embedded
• GALS
• low-power
• network-on-chip
• system-on-chip

The energy usage of on-chip interconnects is a concern for many system-on-chips targeting portable battery-powered devices. We have designed and evaluated a network-on-chip (NoC) for such an application, including tools to optimize for power and communication latency. Our asynchronous (clockless) network operates with efficient two-phase bundled-data links and four-phase routers. The topology and router floorplan is determined by our tool, ANetGen, which optimizes the network for energy and latency using simulated annealing and force-directed placement methods. We compare our solutions against a traditional synchronous NoC as specified by the COSI-2.0 framework and ORION 2.0 router and wire energy models. Traffic is simulated with SystemC functional models, and messages are generated with a "bursty" self-similar b-model. Results indicate our asynchronous network was more energy-efficient, lower in area, and provided comparable or superior message latency.

• 出版日期2011-9