Dynamic quadrant partitioning adaptive routing algorithm for irregular reduced vertical link density topology 3-Dimensional Network-on-Chips

3-Dimensional Networks-on-Chips (3D NoCs) are proposed as the next generation interconnect infrastructure for multi/many core embedded systems due to the high performance characteristics and scalability. However the heat and thermal issues in 3D NoCs are critical. Reducing the vertical links between dies becomes can be one of the proper solutions, but the 3D NoC system performance can be harmed due to the less number of possible vertical links. In order to find the best trade-off point between the vertical links reduction and 3D NoC performance, in this paper, we demonstrate a dynamic quadrant partitioning (DQP) adaptive routing algorithm for 3D NoCs with irregular reduced vertical link density topologies, which can improve the system performance (latency max. 10.9% and energy max. 24.1%) in comparison to deterministic routing algorithm with the same vertical link number configurations. Also our DQP routing algorithm can maintain the system performance in comparison to full vertical link connection running dimension-order deterministic routing algorithm (ZXY) by reducing 40% vertical links number. The comparison results are demonstrated with different benchmark applications and random generated task graphs.