Implementations of efficient non-blocking crossbar network with novel multiplexer design in quantum-dot cellular automata

Abstract

As an emerging nanotechnology, Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) has attracted extensive attentions due to its characteristics of high density, high speed, and low energy consumption. Modern high-performance System-on-Chips (SoCs) with multiple processors require interconnection networks to connect each core for improving data throughput and reducing latency, while the crossbar network is broadly used as a non-blocking interconnection architecture with high efficiency. In this paper, a method to design an efficient QCA-based N × N crossbar network utilizing optimally designed N:1 multiplexers (MUXs) is proposed, followed by a multi-layer and a single-layer implementation of its 8 × 8 design. A simplified matrix model is then introduced to provide a concise and intuitive switch control strategy, and expressions for cell count, area, latency, QCA cost, and QCA complexity of the proposed crossbar networks are derived according to the size N. Experimental results manifest that the proposed 8 × 8 crossbar networks have significant advantages on most performance parameters compared with other existing QCA-based networks.