EM and circuit co-simulation of a reconfigurable hybrid wireless NoC on 2D ICs

The feasibility of the dynamic reconfigurability of the network layer of a hybrid wireless network-on-chip (NoC) that uses on-chip antennas for the wireless network layer and metal interconnects for the wired network layer is studied. The reconfigurability of the NoC is analyzed using a circuit co-simulation technique with a 3D finite element method (FEM) based full-wave electro-magnetic analysis of the antennas. The die and the circuits are modeled according to a typical complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. It is shown that, it is possible to have 1) at least two different frequency domains for the signal sources and 2) the dynamic switching of the signal sinks between the two frequency domains, with minimal design and area overhead. When implemented, the proposed reconfigurable hybrid network architecture can reduce the latency and increase the network throughput.