Title
Virtual networks -- distributed communication resource management
Abstract
Networks-on-Chip (NoC) enable scalability for future manycore architectures, facilitating parallel communication between multiple cores. Applications running in parallel on a NoC-based architecture can affect each other due to overlapping communication. Quality-of-Service (QoS) must be supported by the communication infrastructure to execute communication-, real-time- and safety-critical applications on such an architecture. Different strategies have been proposed to provide QoS for point-to-point connections. These strategies allow each node to set up a limited number of connections to other nodes. In this work Virtual Networks (VN) are proposed to enable QoS for regions of a NoC-based architecture. Virtual Networks overcome the limitation of point-to-point connections. A VN behaves like an exclusive physical network. Virtual Networks can be defined and configured during runtime. The size of the VN region and the assigned bandwidth can be adjusted depending on the application requirements. Virtual Networks enable the decoupling of local from global communication. Therefore, the communication of the application mapped into the region is assigned to a Virtual Network established in that specific region. This concept targets packet-switched networks with virtual channels and is realized by an intelligent hardware unit that manages the virtual channel reservation process at system runtime. Virtual Networks can be established and administrated independent of each other, enabling distributed communication resource management. The proposed concept is implemented as a cycle-accurate SystemC simulation model. The simulation results of executing communicating graphs obtained from real application highlight the usefulness of Virtual Networks by showing improved throughput and reduced delay in the respective scenarios. A hardware implementation demonstrates a low impact on area utilization and power consumption.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1145/2492186
TRETS
Keywords
Field
DocType
point-to-point connection,virtual networks,noc-based architecture,parallel communication,communication resource management,virtual network,overlapping communication,global communication,communication infrastructure,work virtual networks,hardware,network on chip,quality of service
Virtual network,Parallel communication,Computer science,Parallel computing,Network on a chip,Quality of service,Real-time computing,Virtual circuit,Throughput,Virtual channel,Scalability,Distributed computing
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
6
2
1936-7406
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
3
0.42
17
Authors
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jan Heisswolf1515.67
Aurang Zaib2265.74
Andreas Weichslgartner3527.16
Ralf König4414.07
Thomas Wild512425.65
Jürgen Teich62886273.54
Andreas Herkersdorf770388.32
Jürgen Becker81894259.42