A unified link-layer fault-tolerant architecture for network-based many-core embedded systems

Reliability is an important design concern for modern many-core embedded systems. Specifically, on-chip interconnecting systems are vulnerable to permanent channel faults and transient data transmission faults which may significantly impact the overall system performance. In this work, a Unified Link-layer Fault-tolerant NoC (ULF-NoC) architecture is proposed. ULF-NoC is developed for NoC equipped with bidirectional channels and features wormhole switching (instead of store-and-forward switching) and packet-based retransmission. An intelligent buffer controller is developed that does not require separate, dedicated buffer spaces to support packet retransmissions. Extensive simulations using both synthetic and real world data traffics demonstrated marked performance of the proposed ULF-NoC solution.