A Non-Minimal Routing Algorithm for Aging Mitigation in 2D-Mesh NoCs

• Published in: IEEE transactions on computer-aided design of integrated circuits and systems Vol. 38; no. 7; pp. 1373 - 1377
• Main Authors: Wang, Liang, Wang, Xiaohang, Leung, Ho-Fung, Mak, Terrence
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.07.2019; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Aging; Algorithms; Dynamic programming; Heuristic algorithms; Human computer interaction; Negative bias temperature instability; network-on-chip (NoC); Networks; non-minimal routing; Routers; Routing; routing algorithm; Shortest-path problems; State of the art; Switches; System on chip; Thermal variables control; Traffic congestion; Workload; Workloads
• DOI: 10.1109/TCAD.2018.2855149
• ISSN: 0278-0070

Due to technology scaling, aging issue is becoming one of major concerns in the design of network-on-chip (NoC). The imbalanced workload distribution and routing algorithm cause aging hotspots , where a certain group of routers have higher aging effect than others. This can possibly lead to shorter lifetime of NoC. Most existing aging-aware routing algorithms are based on minimal routing, which suffers from less degree of adaptiveness compared to non-minimal routing. Thus, they are inefficient to mitigate the aging effect of routers. In this paper, we propose to use a non-minimal routing scheme to detour the traffic away from the aging hotspots , with the objective of mitigating the aging effect for NoCs. The problem is formulated as a bottleneck shortest path problem and solved using a dynamic programming approach. Finally, the experimental results show that compared to the state-of-the-art aging-aware routing algorithm, the non-minimal routing algorithm has up to 20% lifetime improvement for hotspot traffic patterns and realistic workload traces.