Stable Matching based Virtual Channels Allocation Scheme in Network-on-Chip

Abstract

While designing router micro-architecture of an On-Chip network, a good allocation of virtual channels (VCs) governs an effective resources utilization which essentially results in an optimized number of packets received at destination(s). Generally, the VC allocation schemes deal with the one-way approach of VC allocation to the contending flits. However, this approach produces non-optimal matching of flits to the available VCs on next routers, and therefore leads to the under-utilization of these VCs. This paper proposes a 2-Way VC Allocation scheme to map input VCs (requestors) to output VCs (resources). The proposed scheme is compared with the conventional VC allocation scheme under two different mesh configurations with a 100% channel load. Simulations performed under two different routing schemes in diverse traffic scenarios demonstrate an increase in the number of packets received at destinations by up to 76%. Also, the network’s latency exhibits trade-off with total power consumption while reducing hotspots.