Networks on Chips

“The design of a complex SoC requires the mastering of two major tasks: The design of the computational elements and of their interconnect. The exponentially increasing complexity and heterogeneity of future SoCs forces the designer to abandon traditional bus -based structures and to implement innovative networks-on-chip. This book, written by two leading researchers, is the first of its kind. It is a must on the bookshelf of anybody having an interest in SoC design.” — Heinrich Meyr, Professor RWTH Aachen University and Chief Scientific officer, CoWare, Inc.“This is a highly recommended, informative reference book, with high quality contents provided by the leading experts of the area.” — Professor Bashir M. Al-Hashimi, Electronic Systems Design Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK“An 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, make this book a reference for engineers involved in specification, design or evaluation of NoC architectures.” —Philippe Martin, Product Marketing Director, Arteris“Designers of Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC) are now struggling with the uncertainty of deep submicron devices and an explosion of system complexity. Networks on Chip (NoC) is a new paradigm of SoC design at the system architecture level. A protocol stack of NoC introduced in this book shows a global solution to manage the complicated design problems of SoC. This book gives a clear and systematic methodology of NoC design and will release designers from the nightmare of fights against signal integrity, reliability and variability.” — Hiroto Yasuura, Director and Professor, System LSI Research Center (SLRC), Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

• I. Introduction and Motivation II. Architectures for NoCsIII. Physical network layer IV. Data-link layer and encoding V. Switching and Routing in NoCs VI. Software for NoCsVII. Tools for NoC Design VIII. On-Chip multiprocessors IX. SoCs based on NoCsExamples of other design chips using NoCs