Runtime connection-oriented guaranteed-bandwidth network-on-chip with extra multicast communication service

This paper presents a flexible runtime connection-oriented guaranteed-bandwidth Network on Chip (NoC). Comparing with a standard time-division multiplexing (TDM) method, our local ID-based method provides better flexibility to establish dynamic runtime connections. A specific pre-designed algorithm for finding a conflict-free scheduling, as commonly used in the TDM-based method, is not needed. The contention problem is solved with the hardware solution based on the locally organized message identity (ID), in which flits belonging to the same stream packet will have the same unique/local identity-tag (ID-tag) on each communication link. The ID-tags of each stream will vary locally over communication links and are updated. The updating is organized by ID-tag mapping management units. The routing is organized using runtime programmable routing reservation table. In addition, the proposed methodology supports also a deadlock-free multicast routing service.