Localization of damaged resources in NoC based shared-memory MP2SOC, using a Distributed Cooperative Configuration Infrastructure

In this paper, we present a software approach for localization of faulty components in a 2D-mesh Network-on-Chip, targeting fault tolerance in a shared memory MP2SoC architecture. We use a pre-existing and distributed hardware infrastructure supporting self-test and de-activation of the faulty components (routers and communication channels), that are transformed into “black hole”. We detail the software method used to localize these “black holes”, and centralize the information in a single point, where a modified global routing function can be defined. This embedded software makes an extensive use of a distributed fault-tolerant configuration firmware assisted by a Distributed Cooperative Configuration Infrastructure (DCCI), that is also presented. Finally, “black hole” detection and localization coverage is evaluated.