面向通信能耗的3D NoC映射研究

对于传统的平面结构,三维片上网络(3D NoC)具有更好的集成度和性能,在单芯片内部可以集成更多的处理器核。3D NoC作为2D NoC的结构拓展,在性能提高和低功耗设计方面更具优越性,成为多核系统芯片结构的主流架构。映射就是应用某种算法寻找一种最优方案,将通信任务图的子任务分配到NoC的资源节点上,保证NoC的通信能耗最小。参照2D NoC的研究方法,提出了针对3D网格NoC的通信能耗模型,采用蚁群算法实现了面向通信能耗的NoC映射。实验结果表明,面向不同网络规模的3D网格NoC平台,蚁群映射同随机映射相比,通信能耗降低可以达23%～42%。     

基于网络监控器的专用片上网络动态容错路由

针对专用片上网络（Network on Chip,NoC）全局通信事务管理和可靠性设计问题,提出片上网络监控器的概念,用于获取全局网络实时状态信息及执行路径分配算法,基于此提出一种动态路由机制DyRS-NM.该机制能检测和定位NoC中的拥塞和故障链路,并能区分瞬时和永久性链路故障,采用重传方式避免瞬时故障,通过重新路由计算绕开拥塞和永久性故障.设计实现了RTL级网络监控器和与之通信的容错路由器模块,并将MPEG4解码器应用映射至基于网络监控器的4×4Mesh结构NoC体系结构中,验证了系统性能以及面积功耗开销.相比静态XY路由和容错动态路由FADR,DyRS-NM机制在可接受的开销代价下获得了更优的性能.     

NoC架构片上多处理器系统性能探索

采用SystemC建模和仿真环境建立了一教NoC系统级仿真平台,设计了3个实验分别用于建模3种典型应用(低计算/通信比、高计算/通信比和非独立任务),以定量模拟的方法对NoC架构MPSOC性能进行了详细的调研,并将其结果与总线架构MPSoC进行了对比分析.实验结果显示:NoC系统加速比与处理器数目呈线性关系,不受规模的影响,而总线系统则明显受到处理器数目的限制;共享存储资源成为NoC系统性能提升的限制,但可以通过采用分布式存储策略得到解决,而总线系统却无法克服其共享总线通信瓶颈.因此,在系统规模较大(N>12)时推荐采用NoC体系结构.     

片上网络技术发展现状及趋势浅析

半导体制造工艺的快速发展使得片上可以集成更大规模的硬件资源,片上网络的研究试图解决芯片中全局通信问题,使得从基于计算的设计转变为基于通信的设计,并实现可扩展的通信架构.本文回顾和总结了现有NoC研究工作,指出NoC是当前片上通信发展的主流趋势,并分析了当前NoC关键技术瓶颈,最后预测了多核的技术和产业发展趋势.     

武汉市本地电话网二级网管系统的高可用性解决方案

本文通过对武汉市本地电话网二级网管系统的组网结构、子系统及该系统中基于HP MC/ServiceGuard集群机制的高可用性解决方案的分析以及基于SAN架构的网络存储机制的研究,为本地交换网网管系统的维护、监控和管理提供参考和借鉴.     

处理器可靠性约束的电压频率岛NoC能耗优化

该文针对支持电压频率岛的NoC能耗优化问题,提出了基于电压频率岛划分、分配以及任务映射的能耗优化方法。该方法通过基于处理器可靠性约束的电压频率岛划分,降低了处理器能耗;利用近凸区域选择的电压频率岛分配策略,减少了不同电压岛间复杂路由器的个数;借助量子粒子群算法优化了NoC映射,降低了系统的通信能耗。实验结果表明,该文算法在满足NoC处理器可靠性要求的前提下,可显著降低NoC系统能耗。     

面向蜂窝网络的D2D多播通信的分簇和中继选择方法

传统蜂窝网络中,信道衰减的随机性和不确定性导致小区边缘用户的接收性能很差,尤其是面向视频传输等速率要求较高时其弊端更加凸显。D2D通信因其配置灵活性可作为传统蜂窝网络架构的有利补充,能有效改善边缘用户的性能。该文针对D2D通信的多播传输,分析了系统最小时延成本下的中继数量和分簇算法,提出一种基于分簇和中继选择的低时延D2D多播方案。该方案可以自适应选择多播重传中的中继的数量和中继节点到基站的距离,同时给出最优的带宽资源分配机制。仿真结果表明,与其他方案相比,所提方法能有效减少系统时延,提高边缘用户体验和系统性能。     

片上网络存储器的BIST电路设计

片上网络（Network-on-Chip ,NoC）作为解决片上系统存在的问题而提出的一种解决方案,正受到越来越多的关注,测试技术是NoC设计工作的重要组成部分。该设计针对NoC系统中SRAM存储器模块,研究了SRAM的故障模型,建立了片上网络通信架构的功能模型,复用片上网络作为测试存取路径,设计完成了基于M arch C＋算法的BIST电路设计。该方案采用Verilog语言完成设计,并且在基于FPGA的NoC系统平台上实现了对SRAM的测试。实验结果表明,在面积开销增加较小的情况下,该方法具有较高的故障覆盖率。     

基于云模型进化算法的硅通孔数量受约束的3D NoC测试规划研究

针对硅通孔(TSV)价格昂贵、占用芯片面积大等问题,该文采用基于云模型的进化算法对TSV数量受约束的3维片上网络(3D NoC)进行测试规划研究,以优化测试时间,并探讨TSV的分配对3D NoC测试的影响,进一步优化3D NoC在测试模式下的TSV数量。该方法将基于云模型的进化算法、小生境技术以及遗传算法的杂交技术结合起来,有效运用遗传、优胜劣汰以及保持群落的多样性等理念,以提高算法的寻优速度和寻优精度。研究结果表明,该算法既能有效避免陷入局部最优解,又能提高全局寻优能力和收敛速度,缩短了测试时间,并且优化了3D NoC的测试TSV数量,提高了TSV的利用率。     

片上网络通信架构的BIST测试方法

为了保证NoC(network on chip,片上网络)中IP核之间的正确通信,需要对片上网络通信架构进行测试。本文针对Mesh NoC的功能测试,提出了一种测试通信架构的BIST(built-in self test,内建自测试)方法。该方法在NI(network interface,资源网络接口)中添加BIST模块TPG(test pattern generator,测试向量产生器)和TRA(test response analyzer,测试响应分析器),利用TPG产生测试数据,TRA分析测试响应,来实现通信架构的测试过程。实验结果表明,该方法在增加面积开销较小的情况下,不仅降低了测试成本,还降低了测试时间。     

Partial Virtual Channel Sharing: A Generic Methodology to Enhance Resource Management and Fault Tolerance in Networks-on-Chip

We present a novel Partial Virtual channel Sharing (PVS) NoC architecture which reduces the impact of faults on performance and also tolerates faults within the routing logic. Without PVS, failure of a component impairs the fault-free connected components, which leads to considerable performance degradation. Improving resource utilization is key in enhancing or sustaining performance with minimal overhead when faults or overload occurs. In the proposed architecture, autonomic virtual-channel buffer sharing is implemented with a novel algorithm that determines the sharing of buffers among a set of ports. The runtime allocation of the buffers depends on incoming load and fault occurrence. In addition, we propose an efficient technique for maintaining the accessibility of a processing element (PE) to the network even if its router is faulty. Our techniques can be used in any NoC topology and for both, 2D and 3D NoCs. The synthesis results for an integrated video conference application demonstrate 22 % reduction in average packet latency compared to state-of-the-art virtual channel (VC) based NoC architecture. Extensive quantitative simulation has been carried out with synthetic benchmarks. Simulation results reveal that the PVS architecture improves the performance significantly in presence of faults, compared to other VC-based NoC architectures.     

An interconnection architecture for network-on-chip systems

Network on Chip (NoC) is a discipline research path that primarily addresses the global communication in System on Chip (SoC). It is inspired and uses the same routing and switching techniques needed in multi-computer networks. Current shared-bus based on-chip communication architectures generally have limited scalability due to the nature of the buses especially when complex on-chip communication SoC is needed. The main goal is to have a dedicated communication infrastructure in the system that can scale up while minimizing the area and power. The selected topology of the components interconnects plays prime rule in the performance of NoC architecture as well as routing and switching techniques that can be used. In this paper, we introduce a new NoC architecture by adapting a recursive topology structure. An experimental study is performed to compare this structure with basic NoC topologies represented by 2D mesh and Spidergon. The analysis illustrates the main features of this topology and its unique benefits. The simulation results show that recursive network outperforms 2D mesh and Spidergon in main performance metrics.     

Polaris: A System-Level Roadmapping Toolchain for On-Chip Interconnection Networks

Technology trends are driving parallel on-chip architectures in the form of multiprocessor systems-on-a-chip (MPSoCs) and chip multiprocessors (CMPs). In these systems, the increasing on-chip communication demand among the computation elements necessitates the use of scalable, high-bandwidth network-on-chip (NoC) fabrics instead of dedicated interconnects and shared buses. As transistor feature sizes are further miniaturized, more complicated NoC architectures become feasible that can support more demanding applications. Given the myriad emerging software-hardware combinations, for cost-effectiveness, a system designer critically needs to prune this widening NoC design-space to predict the interconnect fabric(s) that best balance(s) cost/performance, before the actual design process begins. This prompted us to develop Polaris, a system-level roadmapping toolchain for on-chip interconnection networks that helps designers predict the most suitable interconnection network design(s) tailored to their performance needs and power/silicon area constraints with respect to a range of applications that the system will run. Polaris explores the plethora of NoC designs based on projections of network traffic, architectures, and process characteristics. While Polaris's toolchain is extensible so new traffic, network designs, and technology processes can be added, the current version already incorporates 7872 NoC design points. Polaris is rapid, efficiently iterating over thousands of NoC design points, while maintaining high relative and absolute accuracies when validated against detailed NoC synthesis results.     

Application-aware virtual paths insertion for NOCs

Network-on-chip (NoC) has rapidly become a promising alternative for complex system-on-chip architectures including recent multicore architectures. Additionally, optimizing NoC architectures with respect to different design objectives that are suitable for a particular application domain is crucial for achieving high-performance and energy-efficient customized solutions. Despite the fact that many researches have provided various solutions for different aspects of NoCs design, a comprehensive NoCs system solution has not emerged yet. This paper presents a novel methodology to provide a solution for complex on-chip communication problems to reduce power, latency and area overhead. Our proposed NoC communication architecture is based on setting up virtual source–destination paths between selected pairs of NoCs cores so that the packets belonging to distance nodes in the network can bypass intermediate routers while traveling through these virtual paths. In this scheme, the paths are constructed for an application based on its task-graph at the design time. After that, the run time scheduling mechanism is applied to improve the buffer management, virtual channel and switch allocation schemes and hence, the constructed paths are optimized dynamically. Moreover, in our design the router complexity and its overheads are reduced. Additionally, the suggested router has been implemented on Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA family. The evaluation results captured by SPLASH-2 benchmark suite reveal that in comparison with the conventional NoC router, the proposed router takes 25% and 53% reduction in latency and energy, respectively besides 3.5% area overhead. Indeed, our experimental results demonstrate a significant reduction in the average packet latency and total power consumption with negligible area overhead.     

面向实时数字信号系统关键链路延时的NoC映射方法研究

该文在面向功耗优化的经典NoC设计平台和映射算法基础上,针对实时数字信号处理电路固有的实时性特征,提出了一种新的面向最小化系统关键链路延时的NoC自主映射模型MM-Map。该模型在满足处理单元处理容限和链路带宽的约束下,采用基本遗传算法完成延时目标的优化求解。实验结果表明,该模型能节约一定硬件资源的消耗,得到近似全局最优延时解,映射过程简单,收敛效果好。     

Xpipes: a network-on-chip architecture for gigascale systems-on-chip

The growing complexity of embedded multiprocessor architectures for digital media processing will soon require highly scalable communication infrastructures. Packet switched networks-on-chip (NoC) have been proposed to support the trend for systems-on-chip integration. In this paper, an advanced NoC architecture, called Xpipes, targeting high performance and reliable communication for on-chip multi-processors is introduced. It consists of a library of soft macros (switches, network interfaces and links) that are design-time composable and tunable so that domain-specific heterogeneous architectures can be instantiated and synthesized. Links can be pipelined with a flexible number of stages to decouple link throughput from its length and to get arbitrary topologies. Moreover, a tool called XpipesCompiler, which automatically instantiates a customized NoC from the library of soft network components, is used in this paper to test the Xpipes-based synthesis flow for domain-specific communication architectures.     

片上网络节点编码的设计和在路由方面的应用

网络拓扑选择和路由算法设计是片上网络设计的关键问题.在比较现有的三种网络拓扑结构的基础上,提出了一种隐含着相邻节点以及节点之间链路关系并适合二维Torus拓扑结构的节点编码方法.该编码和Torus结构的结合能拓扑结果够简化路由算法的设计和实现,改善了网络路由性能.实验结果表明,提出的编码方法与二维Torus拓扑结构的结合有效地提高了片上网络通信性能.     

SRNoC: A novel high performance Shared-Resource routing scheme for Network-on-Chip

This paper proposes a novel Shared-Resource routing scheme, SRNoC, that not only enhances network transmission performance, but also provides a high efficient load-balance solution for NoC design. The proposed SRNoC scheme expands the NoC design space and provides a novel effective NoC framework. SRNoC scheme mainly consists of the topology and routing algorithm. The proposed topology of SRNoC is based on the Shared-Resource mechanism, in which the routers are divided into groups and each group of routers share a set of specified link resource. Because of the usage of Shared Resource mechanism, SRNoC could effectively distribute the workload uniformly onto the network so as to improve the utilization of the resource and alleviate the network congestion. The proposed routing algorithm is a minimal oblivious routing algorithm. It could improve average latency and saturation load owing to its flexibility and high efficiency. In order to evaluate the load-balance property of the network, we proposed a method to calculate the Φ which represents the characteristic value of load-balance. The smaller the Φ, the better the performance in load-balance. Simulation results show that the average latency and saturation load are dramatically improved by SRNoC both in synthetic traffic patterns and real application traffic trace with negligible hardware overhead. Under the same simulation condition, SRNoC could cut down the total network workload to 48.67% at least. Moreover, SRNoC reduces the value of Φ 45% at least compared with other routing algorithms, which means it achieves better load-balance feature.     

Analyzing power-thermal-performance trade-offs in a high-performance 3D NoC architecture

The emergence of three-dimensional (3D) network-on-chip (NoC) has revolutionized the design of high-performance and energy efficient manycore chips. However, in general, 3D NoC architectures still suffer from high power density and the resultant thermal hotspots leading to functionality and reliability concerns over time. The power consumption and thermal profiles of 3D NoCs can be improved by incorporating a Voltage Frequency Island (VFI)-based power management strategy and Reciprocal Design Symmetry (RDS)-based floor planning. In this paper, we undertake a detailed design space exploration for 3D NoC by considering power-thermal-performance (PTP) trade-offs. We specifically consider a small-world network-enabled 3D NoC (3D SWNoC) in this performance evaluation due to its superior performance and energy-efficiency compared to any other existing 3D NoC architectures. We demonstrate that the VFI-enabled 3D SWNoC lowers the energy-delay-product (EDP) by 57.3% on an average compared to a 2D MESH without VFI. Moreover, by incorporating VFI, we reduce the maximum temperature of 3D SWNoC by 15.2% on an average compared to the non-VFI counterpart. By complementing the VFI-based power management with RDS-based floor planning, the 3D SWNoC reduces the maximum temperature by 25.1% on an average compared to the non-VFI counterpart.