Performance Evaluation of Wireless Networks on Chip Architectures

Amlan Ganguly1,  Kevin Chang1,  Partha Pande1,  Benjamin Belzer1,  Alireza Nojeh2
1Washington State University, 2University of British Columbia


Abstract

The performance benefits of conventional Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures are limited by the high latency and energy dissipation in long distance multihop communication between embedded cores. To alleviate these problems, wireless on-chip networks are envisioned. Using miniaturized on-chip antennas as an enabling technology, wireless NoCs (WiNoCs) can be designed. In this paper we elaborate on the design methodology and technology requirements for a WiNoC and evaluate its performance. It is demonstrated that a WiNoC outperforms its wireline counterpart in terms of network throughput and latency, and that energy dissipation improves by an order of magnitude.