Analysis and optimization of global interconnects for many-core architectures

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to develop circuit-aware interconnect technology optimization for network-on-chip based many-core architectures. The dimensions of global interconnects in many-core chips are optimized for maximum bandwidth density and minimum delay taking into account network-on-chip router latency and size effects of copper. The optimal dimensions thus obtained are used to characterize different network-on-chip topologies based on wiring area utilization, maximum core-to-core channel width, aggregate chip bandwidth and worse case latency. Finally, the advantages of many-core many-tier chips are evaluated for different network-on-chip topologies. Area occupied by a router within a core is shown to be the bottleneck to achieve higher performance in network-on-chip based architectures.