Multi-mapping Meshes: A New Communicating Fabric for Networks-on-Chip

Traditional mesh is a popular interconnection architecture for Networks-on-Chip (NoCs). However, with the trend towards larger number of cores in chip multiprocessors, it is unable to stand the fast-growing diameter and average distance in meshes. Recently, concentration and express channels are two countermeasures for that. In this paper, a new scheme called multi-mapping is proposed, which allows one processing element (PE) to be connected to multiple routers, and vice versa. By properly establishing the mapping relationships between PE and router, both diameter and average distance of the network are lowered while the interconnections between routers are not altered. To provide efficient and in-order communication in NoCs, we develop the X-Y routing scheme with wormhole-switching technique used in multi-mapping meshes. The simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of our method by comparing with traditional meshes and mesh-based express cubes under different traffic patterns.