A Fault-tolerant Routing Method for Network-on-Chips Based on Communication Function Fault Model

Abstract

Fault-tolerant packet routing is a key factor for realizing high-performance and dependable Network-on-Chip (NoC) systems. This paper proposes a fault model for communication functions and a novel fault-tolerant routing method that can cope with the fault model. When faults are considered on a communication function basis, designing a routing method becomes a challenging problem because communication patterns become asymmetric. Our basic idea for this problem is the concept of detour label so that only specific packets make a detour not to use the faulty communication functions. Simulation results indicate that the proposed method achieves at least 13% higher throughput and 68.8% lower latency compared with existing methods.