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Abstract: This paper presents a high level power estimation methodology for a Network-on-Chip (NoC) router, that is capable of providing cycle accurate power profile to enable power exploration at system level. Our power macro model is based on the number of flits passing through a router as the unit of abstraction. Experimental results show that our power macro model incurs less than 5% average absolute cycle error compared to gate level analysis. The high level power macro model allows network power to be readily incorporated into simulation infrastructures, providing a fast and cycle accurate power profile, to enable power optimization such as power-aware compiler, core mapping, and scheduling techniques for CMP. As a case study, we demonstrate the use of our model for evaluating the effect of different core mappings using SPLASH-2 benchmark showing the utility of our power macro model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Although the technology scaling has enabled designers to integrate a large number of processors onto a single chip realizing chip multi-processor (CMP), problems arising from technology scaling have made power reduction an important design issue. Since interconnection networks dissipate a significant portion of the total system power budget, it is desirable to consider interconnection network''s power efficiency when designing CMP. In this paper, we present a variable frequency link for a power-aware interconnection network using the clock boosting mechanism, and apply a dynamic frequency scaling (DFS) policy, that judiciously adjusts link frequency based on link utilization parameter. Experimental result shows that history-based DFS successfully adjusts link frequency to track actual link utilization over time, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed link as a power-aware interconnection network for system-on-chip (SoC). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel Network-on-Chip architecture that not only enhances network transmission performance while maintaining a feasible implementation cost, but also provides a power-efficient solution for interconnection network scenarios. Diagonally-linked mesh NoC that uses wormhole packet switching technique implements a high-performance NoC platform to meet both cost and power consumption requirements. The proposed architecture uses an adaptive quasi-minimal routing algorithm so that it can improve average latency and saturation traffic load owing to its flexibility and adaptiveness. Based on these features, a congestion-aware routing algorithm is proposed to balance traffic load so as to alleviate congestion caused by high throughput network activities. Simulation results show that saturation load is improved dramatically for various traffic patterns. Implementation results also show that employing diagonal links is a more area-efficient method for improving network performance than using large buffers. It is shown that congestion-aware router requires negligible cost overhead but provides better throughput. Finally, simulation results also reveal that power consumption in the proposed architecture outperforms traditional mesh networks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]