Customized adaptive algorithm for deadlock-free routing in irregular mesh NoC

An irregular mesh NoC is characterized by missing nodes and missing links due to the presence of oversized IP cores. Due to these missing links, traditional adaptive routing algorithms cannot be applied. This gives rise to a need to develop a routing algorithm which can make decisions dynamically by obtaining information about the link failures. This paper presents a customized west first routing algorithm for an irregular mesh NoC. We formulated an adaptive routing scheme for irregular mesh. The proposed customized west first routing algorithm avoids deadlocks and enables interleaving of packets for efficiency. The interleaving of flits is supported by the packet manager which keeps track of packet id thus enabling sequential packet reception. The routing logic supports both unicast and multicast communication. The adaptive nature of the algorithm reduces the latency and reduces packet loss in the network and hence improves the reliability. Hence the customized west first routing algorithm has been found to be reliable in terms of packet passing in multicast conflict scenarios.