L1–L2 Interconnect Design Methodology and Arbitration in 3-D IC Multicore Compute Clusters

We introduce a novel 3-D implementation of the interconnect between cores and shared L2 cache banks for multicore clusters. The 3-D structure extends cluster sizes that can be supported with tolerable wire delays. As a result of the shorter connections achieved by splitting existing 2-D design into four layers, performance is improved and area and power are reduced. The splitting enables implementation of a better arbitration scheme, which leads to additional performance improvement.