Interconnect compression and its benefits for multi-core systems

One of the major problems associated with multi-core systems is the performance and energy demand it places on the interconnect system. We presents an overall analysis of the compression possibility in the instructions and data communicated on interconnects for improving performance and reducing energy in multi-core systems. Our analysis shows great potential of interconnect compression. In our study, lower compression ratio means better compression. We find that up to 0.71 compression ratios can be obtained for instruction and data transferred on interconnect components and for integer and floating-point applications, up to 0.74 and 0.73 compression ratios can be achieved, respectively.