A fault-tolerant and deadlock-free routing protocol in 2D meshes based on odd-even turn model

We propose a deterministic fault-tolerant and deadlock-free routing protocol in two-dimensional (2D) meshes based on dimension-order routing and the odd-even turn model. The proposed protocol, called extended X-Y routing, does not use any virtual channels by prohibiting certain locations of faults and destinations. Faults are contained in a set of disjointed rectangular regions called faulty blocks. The number of faults to be tolerated is unbounded as long as nodes outside faulty blocks are connected in the 2D mesh network. The extended X-Y routing can also be used under a special convex fault region called an orthogonal faulty block, which can be derived from a given faulty block by activating some nonfaulty nodes in the block. Extensions to partially adaptive routing, traffic and adaptivity-balancing using virtual networks, and routing without constraints using virtual channels and virtual networks are also discussed.