A monitoring-aware network-on-chip design flow

Networks-on-chip (NoC) are a scalable interconnect solution for systems on chip and are rapidly becoming reality. Monitoring is a key enabler for debugging or performance analysis and quality-of-service techniques. The NoC design problem and the NoC monitoring problem cannot be treated in isolation. We propose a monitoring-aware NoC design flow able to take into account the monitoring requirements in general. We illustrate our flow with a debug driven monitoring case study of transaction monitoring. By treating the NoC design and monitoring problems in synergy, the area cost of monitoring can be limited to 3–20% in general. We also investigate run-time configuration options for the NoC monitoring system resulting in acceptable configuration times.     

REUSE: A combined routing and link scheduling mechanism for wireless mesh networks

Increasing the capacity of wireless mesh networks has motivated numerous studies. In this context, the cross-layer optimization techniques involving joint use of routing and link scheduling are able to provide better capacity improvements. Most works in the literature propose linear programming models to combine both mechanisms. However, this approach has high computational complexity and cannot be extended to large-scale networks. Alternatively, algorithmic solutions are less complex and can obtain capacity values close to the optimal. Thus, we propose the REUSE algorithm, which combines routing and link scheduling and aims to increase throughput capacity in wireless mesh networks. Through simulations, the performance of the proposal is compared to a developed linear programming model, which provides optimal results, and to other proposed mechanisms in the literature that also deal with the problem algorithmically. We observed higher values of capacity in favor of our proposal when compared to the benchmark algorithms.     

Energy-aware routing in hybrid optical network-on-chip for future multi-processor system-on-chip

With the development of Multi-Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) in recent years, the intra-chip communication is becoming the bottleneck of the whole system. Current electronic network-on-chip (NoC) designs face serious challenges, such as bandwidth, latency and power consumption. Optical interconnection networks are a promising technology to overcome these problems. In this paper, we study the routing problem in optical NoCs with arbitrary network topologies. Traditionally, a minimum hop count routing policy is employed for electronic NoCs, as it minimizes both power consumption and latency. However, due to the special architecture of current optical NoC routers, such a minimum-hop path may not be energy-wise optimal. Using a detailed model of optical routers we reduce the energy-aware routing problem into a shortest-path problem, which can then be solved using one of the many well known techniques. By applying our approach to different popular topologies, we show that the energy consumed in data communication in an optical NoC can be significantly reduced. We also propose the use of optical burst switching (OBS) in optical NoCs to reduce control overhead, as well as an adaptive routing mechanism to reduce energy consumption without introducing extra latency. Our simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.     

XCHARM: A routing protocol for multi-channel wireless mesh networks

Recent experimental results have pointed out the impact of physical layer multi-path fading and co-channel interference as the key factors influencing packet delivery among mesh routers (MRs) in wireless mesh networks. In addition, in a multi-channel environment, there exists significant power spectral overlap among channels used by MRs, leading to adjacent channel interference. In this paper, a cross-layer multi-radio, multi-channel routing protocol, XCHARM, is proposed in which the key contribution is the selection of the next hop, channel and transmission rate based on fading and interference concerns. The key features of our proposed protocol are as follows: (i) Routes are chosen based on the availability of channels that support high data rates, exhibit acceptable interference levels and long term resilience to fading related losses, (ii) The path latency is analytically calculated in advance for the candidate routes, accounting for channel induced errors, link layer contention, forward error correcting (FEC) codes, and the allowed data rates over the chosen channels, (iii) The route maintenance is performed by first attempting to identify and correct the point of failure before undertaking a global recovery action. An extensive performance evaluation, spanning the network, link and physical layers, reveals the benefits of adopting our cross-layer routing solution for wireless mesh networks.     

A survey on energy-efficient methodologies and architectures of network-on-chip

Integration of large number of electronic components on a single chip has resulted in complete and complex systems on a single chip. The energy efficiency in the System-on-Chip (SoC) and its communication subset, the Network-on-Chip (NoC), is a key challenge, due to the fact that these systems are typically battery-powered. We present a survey that provides a broad picture of the state-of-the-art energy-efficient NoC architectures and techniques, such as the routing algorithms, buffered and bufferless router architectures, fault tolerance, switching techniques, voltage islands, and voltage-frequency scaling. The objective of the survey is to educate the readers with the latest design-improvements that are carried out in reducing the power consumption in the NoCs.     

无线Mesh网络中一种分布式路由方案

在多射频多信道无线Mesh网络中,链路负载和节点位置的变化将导致网络性能的下降。针对此问题,在混合无线网状路由协议反应式路由基础上,设计了一种新的混合信道分配的分布式路由算法。该算法在路由建立的同时可实现以数据流为单位的最优信道分配,且能避免因单节点失效导致整个网络崩溃的危险。仿真结果表明,提出的RHCA算法较传统算法在网络吞吐量和端到端平均时延方面均有显著优势。另外,在节点移动场景下,所提出的分布式路由算法较其他方法能获得更高的吞吐量和更好的稳健性。     

Improving the yield of NoC-based systems through fault diagnosis and adaptive routing

We propose an effective and low cost method to increase the yield and the lifetime of torus NoCs. The method consists in detecting and diagnosing NoC interconnect faults using BIST structures and activating alternative paths for the faulty links. Alternative paths use the inherent redundancy of the torus topology, thus leading to minimal performance, area, and power overhead. We assume an extended interconnect fault model comprising stuck-at and pairwise shorts within a single link or between any two links in the network. Experimental results for a 3×3 NoC show that the proposed approach can correctly diagnose 93% of all possible interconnect faults and can mitigate 42% of those faults (representing 94.4% of the solvable faults) with a worst case performance penalty of 8% and 1% of area overhead. We also demonstrate the scalability of the method by presenting its application to larger NoCs.     

A simple fault-tolerant adaptive and minimal routing approach in 3-D meshes

In this paper we propose a sufficient codition for minimal routing in 3-dimensional (3-D) meshes with faulty nodes,It is based on an early work of the author on minial routing in 2-dimensional(2-D) meshes,Unlike many traditional models that assume all the nodes know global fault distribution or just adjacent fault information,our approach is based on the concept of limited global fault information,First,we propose a fault model called faulty cube in which all faulty nodes in the system are contained in a set of faulty cubes.Fault information is then distributed to limited number of nodes while it is still sufficeint to support minimal routing.The limited fault information collcted at each node is represented by a vector caaled extended safety level.The extended safety level associated with a node can be used to determine the existence of a minimal path from this node to a given destination .Specifically,we study the existence of minimal paths at a given source node,limited distribution of fault information,minimal routing,and deadlock-free and livelock-free routing.our results show that any minimal routing that is partially adaptive can be applied in our model as long as the dstination node meets a certain conditon.We also propose a dynamic planar-adaptive routing scheme that offers better fault tolerance and adaptivity than the planar-adaptive routing scheme in 3-D meshes.Our approach is the first attempt to address adaptive and minimal routing is 3-D meshes with faulty nodes using limited fault information.     

Conflict-free container routing in mesh yard layouts

Container terminals play an important role in global cargo transportation and they have become an essential intermodal interface between the sea and the land. In the container terminal, the service area is often arranged into rectangular blocks, which leads to a mesh-like path topology. We present a mathematical model for general container routing in mesh yard layouts. Based on this model, a simple container routing algorithm guaranteeing freedom of conflicts is then presented. The algorithm works by carefully choosing suitable containers’ speeds such that the containers using the same junction will arrive at different points in time, and hence incur no conflicts; meanwhile, high routing performance can be achieved. The task completion time and the requirements on timing control during the container routing are also presented. Numerical results verify that our routing scheme has good performance and is free of conflicts.     

Optimal joint routing and link scheduling for real-time traffic in TDMA Wireless Mesh Networks

We investigate the problem of joint routing and link scheduling in Time-Division Multiple Access (TDMA) Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) carrying real-time traffic. We propose a framework that always computes a feasible solution (i.e. a set of paths and link activations) if there exists one, by optimally solving a mixed integer-nonlinear problem. Such solution can be computed in minutes or tens thereof for e.g. grids of up to 4 × 4 nodes. We also propose heuristics based on Lagrangian decomposition to compute suboptimal solutions considerably faster and/or for larger WMNs, up to about 50 nodes. We show that the heuristic solutions are near-optimal, and we exploit them to gain insight on the schedulability in WMN, i.e. to investigate the optimal placement of one or more gateways from a delay bound perspective, and to investigate how the schedulability is affected by the transmission range.     

A method to evaluate the routing policy with two minimal paths within time threshold

Two attributes, the capacity and the lead time, are involved in the quickest path problem which finds a path with the minimum transmission time. The capacity of each edge is assumed to be deterministic in this problem. However, in many real-life networks such as computer, telecommunication, logistics networks, etc., each edge should be multistate due to failure, maintenance, etc. Such a network is named a multistate network. Hence, the minimum transmission time through a multistate network is not fixed. We evaluate the system reliability that a specified amount of data can be sent through a pair of minimal paths simultaneously within the time threshold. A solution procedure is first proposed to calculate it. In order to boost the system reliability, the network administrator decides the routing policy in advance to indicate the first and the second priority pairs of minimal paths. The second one will be responsible for the transmission duty if the first one fails. According to the routing policy, the system reliability can be subsequently computed. The case to transmit data through more than two minimal paths can be extended easily.     

Making-a-stop: A new bufferless routing algorithm for on-chip network

In the deep submicron regime, the power and area consumed by router buffers in network-on-chip (NoC) have become a primary concern. With buffers elimination, bufferless routing is emerging as a promising solution to provide power-and-area efficiency for NoC. In this paper, we present a new bufferless routing algorithm that can be coupled with any topology. The proposed routing algorithm is based on the concept of making-a-stop (MaS), aiming to deadlock and livelock freedom in wormhole-switched NoC. Performance evaluation is carried out by using a flit-level, cycle-accurate network simulator under synthetic traffic scenarios. Simulation results indicate that the proposed routing algorithm yields an improvement over the recent bufferless routing algorithm in average latency, power consumption, and area overhead by up to 10%, 9%, and 80%, respectively.     

Fault-tolerant adaptive and minimal routing in mesh-connectedmulticomputers using extended safety levels

The minimal routing problem in mesh-connected multicomputers with faulty blocks is studied. Two-dimensional meshes are used to illustrate the approach. A sufficient condition for minimal routing in 2D meshes with faulty blocks is proposed. Unlike many traditional models that assume all the nodes know global fault distribution, our approach is based on the concept of an extended safety level, which is a special form of limited fault information. The extended safety level information is captured by a vector associated with each node. When the safety level of a node reaches a certain level (or meets certain conditions), a minimal path exists from this node to any nonfaulty nodes in 2D meshes. Specifically, we study the existence of minimal paths at a given source node, limited distribution of fault information, and minimal routing itself. We propose three fault-tolerant minimal routing algorithms which are adaptive to allow all messages to use any minimal path. We also provide some general ideas to extend our approaches to other low-dimensional mesh-connected multicomputers such as 2D tori and 3D meshes. Our approach is the first attempt to address adaptive and minimal routing in 2D meshes with faulty blocks using limited fault information     

A shortly connected mesh topology for high performance and energy efficient network-on-chip architectures

Network-on-chip-based communication schemes represent a promising solution to the increasing complexity of system-on-chip problems. In this paper, we propose a new mesh-like topology called the shortly connected mesh technology (ScMesh), which is based on the traditional mesh topology, to exploit the graph symmetry properties of interconnection networks. This proposed topology not only enhances network performance by reducing the network diameter, but also provides a lower area/energy solution for interconnection network scenarios. This study analyzes and compares the performance of ScMesh to some newly improved topologies, including the WK-recursive, extended-butterfly fat tree, and diametrical mesh topologies. The experiment results indicate that ScMesh outperforms the other topologies, with throughput increases of 47.71, 33.45, and 18.64 % as well as latency decreases of 45.71, 35.84, and 14.58 % compared to the extended-butterfly fat tree, WK-recursive and diametrical mesh topologies, respectively. In addition, ScMesh achieves 41.22, 32.23, and 15.01 % lower energy consumption and 38.96, 27.43, and 18.21 % lower area overhead than the extended-butterfly fat tree, WK-recursive, and diametrical mesh topologies, respectively.     

A novel minimal distortion-based edge adaptive image steganography scheme using local complexity

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The advantage of spatial domain image steganography techniques is their capacity to embed high payloads of data by directly modifying image pixels. While these...     

基于PRDT的16节点NoC路由算法

网络结构对于片上网络系统的性能和功耗发挥着重要作用，PRDT(2,1)有着较低的网络直径和平均距离、常数的节点度以及良好的可扩展性，这些特点使其非常适于NoC。为了提高小规模PRDT的路由性能，该文提出了一种binary路由算法，当网络规模不大于16时，该算法无须使用虚拟通道即可实现无死锁路由，通过增加少量虚拟通道，可改进为完全自适应路由算法。对所提出的路由算法与原有的向量路由算法进行仿真比较，结果显示binary算法在硬件成本较低的同时，性能更为优异，完全可以应用于基于PRDT的小规模NoC网络。     

A method to evaluate routing policy through p minimal paths for stochastic case

In this paper, a stochastic-flow network is presented to model a computer network in which each arc has various possible capacities and may fail. In order to shorten the transmission time, the transmission protocol allowing the data to be sent through multiple minimal paths simultaneously is utilized for the computer network. However, the minimum transmission time to send a given amount of data is not fixed due to the property of stochastic capacity. Accordingly, the first addressed issue is to evaluate the probability that the network is able to send the data within a time constraint by adopting the transmission protocol. Such a probability is named as transmission reliability that is regarded as a performance indicator to measure the QoS for a computer network. Without knowing all minimal paths in advance, an efficient solution procedure is proposed to calculate transmission reliability. The experimental results of 35 random networks show that the proposed algorithm can be executed efficiently. Moreover, in order to increase transmission reliability, the network administrator decides the routing policy to designate the first and the second priority p minimal paths. The second addressed issue is to evaluate transmission reliability associated with the routing policy. A sort criterion is subsequently presented to find an ideal routing policy.     

Combined routing and flow control in computer communication networks: A two-level adaptive scheme

The problem of designing combined routing and flow control strategies for packet-switched computer communication networks is considered in this paper and a new two-level adaptive scheme is presented. State dependent models for routing and input buffer limit flow control are introduced to facilitate formulating the problem, for which a solution in the framework of system stabilization is developed. The overall decision-making consists of a distributed computation of the routing parameters and the flow control parameters at the lower level of network nodes and a computation on a slower time-scale of a set of combined parameters by a supervisor (network control center) at a higher hierarchical level. The parameters are adaptively updated at both levels to improve the network performance with respect to a set of objectives concerning delay, throughput, and buffer utilization. Some implementational aspects of the algorithm are discussed and simulation results that illustrate the performance are presented. Major strong points of the present scheme are i) adaptivity to changes in load and/or network topology, ii) capability of handling different objectives individually at different hierarchical levels, and iii) consideration of capacity constrained nodal buffers in addition to capacity limited links, unlike in the earlier developed schemes, for a more realistic representation of network environment.     

2D Mesh结构中一种新的自适应路由模式

针对2D Mesh拓扑结构中的损坏节点会导致静态XY路由算法无法有效传输的问题,提出了一种新的路由算法——FTXY路由算法。首先对网络拓扑结构中的平均延时、理想平均吞吐量和能量消耗进行了理论评估,然后在NIRGAM仿真软平台上采用FTXY路由算法对上述三个参数进行验证,并与XY路由算法进行比较。实验结果显示,新的路由算法可以有效地绕过损坏节点,并且不会造成阻塞,提高了网络的传输性能。     

Parallel adaptive mesh generation and decomposition

An important class of methodologies for the parallel processing of computational models defined on some discrete geometric data structures (i.e. meshes, grids) is the so calledgeometry decomposition or splitting approach. Compared to the sequential processing of such models, the geometry splitting parallel methodology requires an additional computational phase. It consists of the decomposition of the associated geometric data structure into a number of balancedsubdomains that satisfy a number of conditions that ensure the load balancing and minimum communication requirement of the underlying computations on a parallel hardware platform. It is well known that the implementation of the mesh decomposition phase requires the solution of a computationally intensive problem. For this reason several fast heuristics have been proposed. In this paper we explore a decomposition approach which is part of a parallel adaptive finite element mesh procedure. The proposed integrated approach consists of five steps. It starts with a coarse background mesh that isoptimally decomposed by applying well known heuristics. Then, the initial mesh is refined in each subdomain after linking the new boundaries introduced by its decomposition. Finally, the decomposition of the new refined mesh is improved so that it satisfies the objectives and conditions of the mesh decomposition problem. Extensive experimentation indicates the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed parallel mesh and decomposition approach.