Abstract
As modern computing systems become increasingly complex, communication efficiency among and inside chips has become as important as the computation speeds of individual processor cores. Traditionally, inter-chip and intra-chip communication architectures are separately designed to maximize design flexibility under different constraints. However, jointly designing communication architectures for both inter-chip and intra-chip communication could potentially yield better solutions. In this paper, we present a unified inter/intra-chip optical network, called UNION, for chip multiprocessors (CMP). UNION is based on recent progress in nano-photonic technologies. It connects not only processors on a single CMP but also multiple CMPs in a system. UNION employs a hierarchical optical network to separate inter-chip communication traffic from intra-chip communication traffic. It fully utilizes a single optical network to transmit both payload packets and control packets. The network controller on each CMP not only manages intra-chip communications but also collaborate with each other to facilitate inter-chip communications. We compared CMPs using UNION with those using a matched electronic counterpart in 45 nm process. Based on eight applications, simulation results show that on average UNION improves CMP performance by 3.1X while reducing 92% of network energy consumption and 52% of communication delay.
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