J4 ›› 2009, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (6): 1063-1069.

• Original Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Star-cluster double-loop topology for the network-on-chip

LIU You-yao1,2;HAN Jun-gang1,2
  

  1. (1. School of Microelectronic, Xidian Univ., Xi'an  710071, China
    2. Dept. of Computer, Xi'an Inst. of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi'an  710121, China)
  • Received:2008-09-12 Online:2009-12-20 Published:2010-01-20
  • Contact: LIU You-yao E-mail:lyyao2002@xiyou.edu.cn

Abstract:

With the feature size of semiconductor process reduced and IP(Intellectual Properties)  cores increased, interconnection network architectures on the chip have a great influence on the performance and area of System-on-Chip(SoC) design. Focusing on decreasing node degrees, reducing links and reusing the router node, a regular Network-on-Chip(NoC) architecture, named the Star-Cluster Double-Loop(SCDL(2m)) interconnection network, is proposed. The topology of SCDL(2m) is simple, planar, symmetric and scalable in architecture, and it has 4m nodes. Each node connects three adjacent nodes and four IP cores. The nodes of SCDL(2m) adopt the Johnson coding scheme that can make the design of routing algorithm simple and efficient. The SCDL(2m) is compared with Cluster-Ring and Cluster-Mesh by simulation and analysis, both under a uniform load and under more realistic load assumptions in several network size scenarios. The results show that the SCDL(2m) topology is a good trade-off between performance and cost. It is a better topology for NoC.

Key words: system-on-chip, network-on-chip, network topology, routing algorithms

CLC Number: 

  • TN911.22