A novel test strategy and fault-tolerant routing algorithm for NoC routers

In this paper, we present a novel routing algorithm in order to avoid deadlock and packet dropping. In our proposed algorithm the network-on-chip (NoC) is capable of tolerating faults in presence of control faults in combinational parts of routers. In addition, by modifying the functionality of the router, the router is enabled to test its own, as well as the preceding router´s functionality based on the routing algorithm, destination address and previous router´s situation. Each router recognizes the faulty neighbor and announces it to successive routers. In this scheme no extra packets will be generated. We analyze the effects of our method on latency, power consumption and drop rate. Our experimental results illustrate that, fault coverage for routers can reach up to 100% with yet low power consumption and significant improvement in latency compared to the baseline approach.