BUFFER ENGINEERING FOR MODIFIED FAT TREE NoCs FOR MANY-CORE SYSTEMS-ON-CHIP

Abstract

As networks-on-chips (NoCs) are expected to provide the necessary scalable communication medium for future many-core systems-on-chips (SoCs) optimizing their resources is of great importance. What is really needed is an efficient NoC architecture with optimized resources that requires very little customization by the SoC developers. One of the most important area and power hungry resources is the NoC's buffers. In this work, a new Modified Fat Tree (MFT) NoC architecture with buffers engineered for maximum efficiency (performance versus area) is presented. Extensive simulations are used to show optimum buffer design/placement under different conditions of traffic types and NoC sizes.