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Network on chip: Switch Fabrics.

A simple ring is not very effective. Instead, richer meshes of elements are used and the elements can have a higher radix, such as 4x4.

A full-crossbar (any input to any output in unit time) is very costly and still suffers from output port contention.

There are a number of well-known switch wiring schemes, whth names such as Benes, Clos, Shuffle, Delta, Torus, Mesh, Express-Mesh, Butterfly.

Two-by-two switch element connects eight devices in three stages. Using a higher-radix (e.g. 4) is common.

Problem: typically we will not need quite as many initiators as targets. Throughput=no of ports, but fabric may block and there may be receiver contention.

Can be overly complex on the small scale, but scale up well.

Network On Chip Synthesis Tool: Mullins NetGen Network Generator. »RDM NoC Notes


9: (C) 2008-11, DJ Greaves, University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory.