Bio-inspired self-aware fault-tolerant routing protocol for network-on-chip architectures using Particle Swarm Optimization

This research paper proposes a bio-inspired self-aware fault-tolerant routing protocol for network-on-chip architecture using particle swarm optimization (PSO), which considers synchronous, asynchronous, and self-organizing communication mechanisms to intelligently load-balance the traffic on the entire network in the presence of faulty components. By way of experimentation and simulation, this study demonstrates that the proposed scheme can converge to a global optimum, minimal routing path in real time, in the presence of network congestion and faulty routers and links. The basic PSO algorithm was improved to implement the proposed routing scheme, named bio-inspired self-aware fault-tolerant routing protocol (BISFTRP). This scheme uses the synchronous, asynchronous, and self-organizing features of PSO to create a global routing table and intelligent adaptation, which gives rise to scalable, real-time, and dynamic routing decisions with high throughput, low latency, and minimum power consumption. A cycle-accurate simulation system to demonstrate the flexibility and efficiency of the proposed scheme is used. Comparison results with state-of-the-art fault-tolerant routing algorithms show that the BISFTRP routing protocol achieves high routing performance without routing oscillations and throughput degradation. Furthermore, the hardware implementation results show that the BISFTRP router achieves an efficient area and power utilization, compared with state-of-the-art routers. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.