CuNoC: A dynamic scalable communication structure for dynamically reconfigurable FPGAs

The growing complexity of integrated circuits imposes to the designers to change and direct the traditional bus-based design concepts towards NoC-based. Networks on-chip (NoCs) are emerging as a viable solution to the existing interconnection architectures which are especially characterized by high level of parallelism, high performances and scalability. The already proposed NoC architectures in the literature are destined to System-on-chip (SoCs) designs. For a FPGA-based system, in order to take all benefits from this technology, the proposed NoCs are not suitable. In this paper, we present a new paradigm called CuNoC for intercommunication between modules dynamically placed on a chip for the FPGA-based reconfigurable devices. The CuNoC is based on a scalable communication unit characterized by unique architecture, arbitration policy base on the priority-to-the-right rule and modified XY adaptive routing algorithm. The CuNoC is namely adapted and suited to the FPGA-based reconfigurable devices but it can be also adapted with small modifications to all other systems which need an efficient communication medium. We present the basic concept of this communication approach, its main advantages and drawbacks with regards to the other main already proposed NoC approaches and we prove its feasibility on examples through the simulations. Performance evaluation and implementation results are also given. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.