A self-adaptive full asynchronous bi-directional transmission channel for network-on-chips

To improve two shortcomings of conventional network-on-chips, i.e. low utilization rate in channels between routers and excessive interconnection lines, this paper proposes a full asynchronous self-adaptive bi-directional transmission channel. It can utilize interconnection lines and register resources with high efficiency, and dynamically detect the data transmission state between routers through a direction regulator, which controls the sequencer to automatically adjust the transmission direction of the bi-directional channel, so as to provide a flexible data transmission environment. Null convention logic units are used to make the circuit quasi-delay insensitive and highly robust. The proposed bi-directional transmission channel is implemented based on SMIC 0.18 μm standard CMOS technology. Post-layout simulation results demonstrate that this self-adaptive bi-directional channel has better performance on throughput, transmission flexibility and channel bandwidth utilization compared to a conventional single direction channel. Moreover, the proposed channel can save interconnection lines up to 30% and can provide twice the bandwidth resources of a single direction transmission channel. The proposed channel can apply to an on-chip network which has limited resources of registers and interconnection lines. (semiconductor integrated circuits)