A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Energy-aware fault-tolerant NoCs addressing multiple traffic classes
Authors: Syed M A H Jafri, Liang Guang, Ahmed Hemani, Kolin Paul, Juha Plosila, Hannu Tenhunen
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
Publication year: 2013
Journal: Microprocessors and Microsystems
Journal name in source: MICROPROCESSORS AND MICROSYSTEMS
Journal acronym: MICROPROCESS MICROSY
Number in series: 8
Volume: 37
Issue: 8
First page : 811
Last page: 822
Number of pages: 12
ISSN: 0141-9331
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2013.04.005
Abstract
This paper presents an energy efficient architecture to provide on-demand fault tolerance to multiple traffic classes, running simultaneously on single network on chip (NoC) platform. Today, NoCs host multiple traffic classes with potentially different reliability needs. Providing platform-wide worst-case (maximum) protection to all the classes is neither optimal nor desirable. To reduce the overheads incurred by fault tolerance, various adaptive strategies have been proposed. The proposed techniques rely on individual packet fields and operating conditions to adjust the intensity and hence the overhead of fault tolerance. Presence of multiple traffic classes undermines the effectiveness of these methods. To complement the existing adaptive strategies, we propose on-demand fault tolerance, capable of providing required reliability, while significantly reducing the energy overhead. Our solution relies on a hierarchical agent based control layer and a reconfigurable fault tolerance data path. The control layer identifies the traffic class and directs the packet to the path providing the needed reliability. Simulation results using representative applications (matrix multiplication, FFT, wavefront, and HiperLAN) showed up to 95% decrease in energy consumption compared to traditional worst case methods. Synthesis results have confirmed a negligible additional overhead, for providing on-demand protection (up to 5.3% area), compared to the overall fault tolerance circuitry. (C) 2013 Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.
This paper presents an energy efficient architecture to provide on-demand fault tolerance to multiple traffic classes, running simultaneously on single network on chip (NoC) platform. Today, NoCs host multiple traffic classes with potentially different reliability needs. Providing platform-wide worst-case (maximum) protection to all the classes is neither optimal nor desirable. To reduce the overheads incurred by fault tolerance, various adaptive strategies have been proposed. The proposed techniques rely on individual packet fields and operating conditions to adjust the intensity and hence the overhead of fault tolerance. Presence of multiple traffic classes undermines the effectiveness of these methods. To complement the existing adaptive strategies, we propose on-demand fault tolerance, capable of providing required reliability, while significantly reducing the energy overhead. Our solution relies on a hierarchical agent based control layer and a reconfigurable fault tolerance data path. The control layer identifies the traffic class and directs the packet to the path providing the needed reliability. Simulation results using representative applications (matrix multiplication, FFT, wavefront, and HiperLAN) showed up to 95% decrease in energy consumption compared to traditional worst case methods. Synthesis results have confirmed a negligible additional overhead, for providing on-demand protection (up to 5.3% area), compared to the overall fault tolerance circuitry. (C) 2013 Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.
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