This book targets engineers and researchers familiar with basic computer architecture concepts who are interested in learning about on-chip networks. This work is designed to be a short synthesis of the most critical concepts in on-chip network design. It is a resource for both understanding on-chip network basics and for providing an overview of state of-the-art research in on-chip networks. We believe that an overview that teaches both fundamental concepts and highlights state-of-the-art designs will be of great value to both graduate students and industry engineers. While not an exhaustive text, we hope to illuminate fundamental concepts for the reader as well as identify trends and gaps in on-chip network research. With the rapid advances in this field, we felt it was timely to update and review the state of the art in this second edition. We introduce two new chapters at the end of the book. We have updated the latest research of the past years throughout the book and also expanded our coverage of fundamental concepts to include several research ideas that have now made their way into products and, in our opinion, should be textbook concepts that all on-chip network practitioners should know. For example, these fundamental concepts include message passing, multicast routing, and bubble flow control schemes.

This book targets engineers and researchers familiar with basic computer architecture concepts who are interested in learning about on-chip networks. This work is designed to be a short synthesis of the most critical concepts in on-chip network design. It is a resource for both understanding on-chip network basics and for providing an overview of state of the-art research in on-chip networks. We believe that an overview that teaches both fundamental concepts and highlights state-of-the-art designs will be of great value to both graduate students and industry engineers. While not an exhaustive text, we hope to illuminate fundamental concepts for the reader as well as identify trends and gaps in on-chip network research. With the rapid advances in this field, we felt it was timely to update and review the state of the art in this second edition. We introduce two new chapters at the end of the book. We have updated the latest research of the past years throughout the book and also expanded our coverage of fundamental concepts to include several research ideas that have now made their way into products and, in our opinion, should be textbook concepts that all on-chip network practitioners should know. For example, these fundamental concepts include message passing, multicast routing, and bubble flow control schemes.

Networks-on-Chip: From Implementations to Programming Paradigms provides a thorough and bottom-up exploration of the whole NoC design space in a coherent and uniform fashion, from low-level router, buffer and topology implementations, to routing and flow control schemes, to co-optimizations of NoC and high-level programming paradigms. This textbook is intended for an advanced course on computer architecture, suitable for graduate students or senior undergrads who want to specialize in the area of computer architecture and Networks-on-Chip. It is also intended for practitioners in the industry in the area of microprocessor design, especially the many-core processor design with a network-on-chip. Graduates can learn many practical and theoretical lessons from this course, and also can be motivated to delve further into the ideas and designs proposed in this book. Industrial engineers can refer to this book to make practical tradeoffs as well. Graduates and engineers who focus on off-chip network design can also refer to this book to achieve deadlock-free routing algorithm designs. Provides thorough and insightful exploration of NoC design space. Description from low-level logic implementations to co-optimizations of high-level program paradigms and NoCs. The coherent and uniform format offers readers a clear, quick and efficient exploration of NoC design space Covers many novel and exciting research ideas, which encourage researchers to further delve into these topics. Presents both engineering and theoretical contributions. The detailed description of the router, buffer and topology implementations, comparisons and analysis are of high engineering value.

With the ability to integrate a large number of cores on a single chip, research into on-chip networks to facilitate communication becomes increasingly important. On-chip networks seek to provide a scalable and high-bandwidth communication substrate for multi-core and many-core architectures. High bandwidth and low latency within the on-chip network must be achieved while fitting within tight area and power budgets. In this lecture, we examine various fundamental aspects of on-chip network design and provide the reader with an overview of the current state-of-the-art research in this field. Table of Contents: Introduction / Interface with System Architecture / Topology / Routing / Flow Control / Router Microarchitecture / Conclusions

The design of today's semiconductor chips for various applications, such as telecommunications, poses various challenges due to the complexity of these systems. These highly complex systems-on-chips demand new approaches to connect and manage the communication between on-chip processing and storage components and networks on chips (NoCs) provide a powerful solution. This book is the first to provide a unified overview of NoC technology. It includes in-depth analysis of all the on-chip communication challenges, from physical wiring implementation up to software architecture, and a complete classification of their various Network-on-Chip approaches and solutions.* Leading-edge research from world-renowned experts in academia and industry with state-of-the-art technology implementations/trends* An integrated presentation not currently available in any other book* A thorough introduction to current design methodologies and chips designed with NoCs

The implementation of networks-on-chip (NoC) technology in VLSI integration presents a variety of unique challenges. To deal with specific design solutions and research hurdles related to intra-chip data exchange, engineers are challenged to invoke a wide range of disciplines and specializations while maintaining a focused approach. Leading Researchers Present Cutting-Edge Designs Tools Networks-on-Chips: Theory and Practice facilitates this process, detailing the NoC paradigm and its benefits in separating IP design and functionality from chip communication requirements and interfacing. It starts with an analysis of 3-D NoC architectures and progresses to a discussion of NoC resource allocation, processor traffic modeling, and formal verification, with an examination of protocols at different layers of abstraction. An exploration of design methodologies, CAD tool development, and system testing, as well as communication protocol, the text highlights important emerging research issues, such as Resource Allocation for Quality of Service (QoS) on-chip communication Testing, verification, and network design methodologies Architectures for interconnection, real-time monitoring, and security requirements Networks-on-Chip Protocols Presents a flexible MPSoC platform to easily implement multimedia applications and evaluate future video encoding standards This useful guide tackles power and energy issues in NoC-based designs, addressing the power constraints that currently limit the embedding of more processing elements on a single chip. It covers traffic modeling and discusses the details of traffic generators. Using unique case studies and examples, it covers theoretical and practical issues, guiding readers through every phase of system design.

As the number of processor cores and IP blocks integrated on a single chip is steadily growing, a systematic approach to design the communication infrastructure becomes necessary. Different variants of packed switched on-chip networks have been proposed by several groups during the past two years. This book summarizes the state of the art of these efforts and discusses the major issues from the physical integration to architecture to operating systems and application interfaces. It also provides a guideline and vision about the direction this field is moving to. Moreover, the book outlines the consequences of adopting design platforms based on packet switched network. The consequences may in fact be far reaching because many of the topics of distributed systems, distributed real-time systems, fault tolerant systems, parallel computer architecture, parallel programming as well as traditional system-on-chip issues will appear relevant but within the constraints of a single chip VLSI implementation.