An asynchronous on-chip network router with quality-of-service (QoS) support

Abstract

This paper presents an asynchronous on-chip network router with quality-of-service (QoS) support. The router uses a virtual channel architecture with a priority-based scheduler to differentiate between multiple connections with various QoS requirements sharing the same physical channel. A gate-level prototype of the router has been built and its functionality and performance evaluated. The simulations show that the router is capable of offering a high-level of QoS within the capacity limitations of the network.