A VLSI architecture for enhancing the fault tolerance of NoC using quad-spare mesh topology and dynamic reconfiguration

Effective fault tolerant techniques are crucial for a Network-on-Chip (NoC) to achieve reliable communication. In this paper, a novel VLSI architecture employing redundant routers is proposed to enhance the fault tolerance of an NoC. The NoC mesh is divided into blocks of 2×2 routers with a spare router placed in the center. The proposed fault-tolerant architecture, referred to as a quad-spare mesh, can be dynamically reconfigured by changing control signals without altering the underlying topology. This dynamic reconfiguration and its corresponding routing algorithm are demonstrated in detail. Experimental results show that the proposed design achieves significant improvements on reliability compared with those reported in the literature.