Topological Structure and Physical Layout Co-Design for Wavelength-Routed Optical Networks-on-Chip

• Published in: IEEE transactions on computer-aided design of integrated circuits and systems Vol. 41; no. 7; pp. 2237 - 2249
• Main Authors: Lu, Yu-Sheng, Chen, Yan-Lin, Yu, Sheng-Jung, Chang, Yao-Wen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.07.2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Co-design; High-speed optical techniques; Insertion loss; Laser theory; Layout; Layouts; network topology; Optical communication; optical design; optical fiber networks; Optical losses; Optical waveguides; physical design; Power lasers; Signal transmission; System on chip; Topology; wavelength routing; WDM networks
• ISSN: 0278-0070; 1937-4151
• DOI: 10.1109/TCAD.2021.3101145

The wavelength-routed optical network on chip (WRONoC) is a promising solution for signal transmission in modern System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. Previous works do not simultaneously handle all the following four main issues for WRONoCs: 1) correlations between the topological structure and physical layout; 2) tradeoffs between the maximum insertion loss and the number of wavelengths; 3) runtime scalability of wavelength assignment scheme; and 4) a fully automated flow to generate predictable designs. As a result, their insertion loss estimation is inaccurate, their wavelength assignment is inefficient, and thus, only suboptimal results are obtained. To remedy these disadvantages, we present a fully automated topological structure and a physical layout co-design flow with improved wavelength assignment schemes to minimize the maximum insertion loss and the laser power simultaneously with a significant speedup. The experimental results show that our co-design flow significantly outperforms state-of-the-art works in the maximum insertion loss, laser power, and runtimes.