Abstract-The design and performance of next-generation chip multiprocessors (CMPs) will be bound by the limited amount of power that can be dissipated on a single die. We present photonic networks-on-chip (NoC) as a solution to reduce the impact of intrachip and off-chip communication on the overall power budget. The low loss properties of optical waveguides, combined with bit-rate transparency, allow for a photonic interconnection network that can deliver considerably higher bandwidth and lower latencies with significantly lower power dissipation than an interconnection network based only on electronic signaling. We explain why on-chip photonic communication has recently become a feasible opportunity and explore the challenges that need to be addressed to realize its implementation. We introduce a novel hybrid microarchitecture for NoCs that combines a broadband photonic circuit-switched network with an electronic overlay packet-switched control network. This design leverages the strength of each technology and represents a flexible solution for the different types of messages that are exchanged on the chip; large messages are communicated more efficiently through the photonic network, while short messages are delivered electronically with minimal power consumption. We address the critical design issues including topology, routing algorithms, deadlock avoidance, and path-setup/teardown procedures. We present experimental results obtained with POINTS, an event-driven simulator specifically developed to analyze the proposed design idea, as well as a comparative power analysis of a photonic versus an electronic NoC. Overall, these results confirm the unique benefits for future generations of CMPs that can be achieved by bringing optics into the chip in the form of photonic NoCs.
Abstract-The theory of latency-insensitive design is presented as the foundation of a new correct-by-construction methodology to design complex systems by assembling intellectual property components. Latency-insensitive designs are synchronous distributed systems and are realized by composing functional modules that exchange data on communication channels according to an appropriate protocol. The protocol works on the assumption that the modules are stallable, a weak condition to ask them to obey. The goal of the protocol is to guarantee that latency-insensitive designs composed of functionally correct modules behave correctly independently of the channel latencies. This allows us to increase the robustness of a design implementation because any delay variations of a channel can be "recovered" by changing the channel latency while the overall system functionality remains unaffected. As a consequence, an important application of the proposed theory is represented by the latency-insensitive methodology to design large digital integrated circuits by using deep submicrometer technologies.Index Terms-Deep submicrometer design, formal methods, latency-insensitive protocols, system design.
The explosive growth of embedded electronics is bringing information and control systems of increasing complexity to every aspects of our lives. The most challenging designs are safety-critical systems, such as transportation systems (e.g., airplanes, cars, and trains), industrial plants and health care monitoring. The difficulties reside in accommodating constraints both on functionality and implementation. The correct behavior must be guaranteed under diverse states of the environment and potential failures; implementation has to meet cost, size, and power consumption requirements. The design is therefore subject to extensive mathematical analysis and simulation. However, traditional models of information systems do not interface well to the continuous evolving nature of the environment in which these devices operate. Thus, in practice, different mathematical representations have to be mixed to analyze the overall behavior of the system. Hybrid systems are a particular class of mixed models that focus on the combination of discrete and continuous subsystems. There is a wealth of tools and languages that have been proposed over the years to handle hybrid systems. However, each tool makes different assumptions on the environment, resulting in somewhat different notions of hybrid system. This makes it difficult to share information among tools. Thus, the community cannot maximally leverage the substantial amount of work that has been directed to this important topic. In this paper, we review and compare hybrid system tools by highlighting their differences in terms of their underlying semantics, expressive power and mathematical mechanisms. We conclude our review with a comparative summary, which suggests the need for a unifying approach to hybrid systems design. As a step in this direction, we make the case for a semantic-aware interchange format, which would enable the use of joint techniques, make a formal comparison between different approaches possible, and facilitate exporting and importing design representations.
This paper makes several contributions to address the challenge of supervising HLS tools for design space exploration (DSE). We present a study on the application of learning-based methods for the DSE problem, and propose a learning model for HLS that is superior to the best models described in the literature. In order to speedup the convergence of the DSE process, we leverage transductive experimental design, a technique that we introduce for the first time to the CAD community. Finally, we consider a practical variant of the DSE problem, and present a solution based on randomized selection with strong theory guarantee.
Here, we address the orthogonalization of communication versus computation-in particular, separating the design of the block functionalities from communication architecture development. An essential element of communicationbased design is the encapsulation of predesigned functional modules within automatically generated interface structures. Such a strategy ensures a correct-by-construction composition of the system. Latency-insensitive design and the recycling paradigm are a step in this direction.
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