Architecture and Design of Core Network Interface for Distributed Routing in OASIS NoC
Ryuya Okada · 2012
The main functions of a Network Interface (NI) are flitization, i.e., conversion of a packet into flits, and deflitization, i.e., conversion of flits into a packet. They help data transmission from source core to destination one by adding some control information to packets. There are 2 types of NIs such as source routing NI and distributed routing NI. The former has a path information table for the complete route information. In the latter, a packet header is compact. We proposed an architecture and a design of a Core Network Interface (NI) for distributed routing on an Altera FPGA board. The designed NI occupies less than 1% of area utilization of Cyclone II FPGA. In addition, the data transmission delay from core to router and from router to core path is equal to 3 + 4(N - 1) clock cycles / packet (N = Number of flits).