A high performance router with dynamic buffer allocation for on-chip interconnect networks

With the number of processor cores increasing in chip multi-processors (CMPs) and global wire delays increasing, networks on chip have been gaining wide acceptance for on-chip inter-core communication. This paper introduces a low latency Dynamic Virtual Output Queues Router (DVOQR), which can reduce the router latency to two cycles by leveraging look-ahead routing computation and virtual output address queues scheme. Simulation results show that network throughput on a 4×4 mesh increases by up to 46.9% and 28.6%, compared to wormhole router and virtual channel router, and that DVOQR outperforms doubled buffer virtual channel router by 1.9% under same input speedup. Network zero-load-latency also decreases by 25.6% and 41% respectively under random traffic. The results with place and route used by Cadence Encounter in TSMC 65nm technology display that the frequency of DVOQR can reach 1.4 GHz, the cell area of the router is only 0.424mm² and the power consumption is 274 mw under the 50% injection rate.