A software-controlled bandwidth allocation scheme for multiple router on-chip-networks

Abstract

As the number of IP cores has been increasing in a System-on-Chip (SoC), multiple routers are included inon-chip-networks. Each router has its own arbitration policy and it is difficult to obtain a desired arbitrationresult by combining multiple routers. Allocating desired bandwidths to the ports across the routers is moredifficult. In this paper, a guaranteed bandwidth allocation scheme using an IP-level QoS control is proposed toovercome the limitations of existing local arbitration policies. Each IP can control the priority of a packetdepending on the data communication requirement within the allocated bandwidth. The experimental resultsshow that the proposed mechanism guarantees for IPs to utilize the allocated bandwidth in multiple routeron-chip-networks. The maximum error rate of bandwidth allocation of the proposed scheme is only 1.9%.