A Virtual Channel Calculation Algorithm for Application Specific On-chip Networks

Abstract

A virtual channel (VC) calculation algorithm for wormhole-switched on-chip networks is proposed. Traditionally, the virtual channels were allocated uniformly, which results in a waste of area and power. To remedy this situation, based on the queuing theory, we propose a router analytical model. Using this model, the proposed algorithm calculates the bandwidth usage at each router in the network according to the traffic characteristics of the target application, and adds VC only to the channels with the highest bandwidth usage. The simulation results show that the VC allocation result is more reasonable and higher total transmission rate can be achieved compared to the uniform VC allocation. For hotspot traffic, about 33.3% savings in buffering resources can be achieved using our algorithm, in the case of achieving similar performance levels.