Two-level FIFO buffer design for routers in on-chip interconnection networks

The on-chip interconnection network (OCIN) is an integrated solution for system-on-chip (SoC) designs. The buffer architecture and size, however, dominate the performance of OCINs and affect the design of routers. This work analyzes different buffer architectures and uses a data-link two-level FIFO (first-in first-out) buffer architecture to implement high-performance routers. The concepts of shared buffers and multiple accesses for buffers are developed using the two-level FIFO buffer architecture. The proposed two-level FIFO buffer architecture increases the utilities of the storage elements via the centralized buffer organization and reduces the area and power consumption of routers to achieve the same performance achieved by other buffer architectures. Depending on a cycleaccurate simulator, the proposed data-link two-level FIFO buffer can realize performance similar to that of the conventional virtual channels, while using 25% of the buffers. Consequently, the two-level FIFO buffer can achieve about 22% power reduction compared with the similar performance of the conventional virtual channels using UMC 65 nm CMOS technology.