OCP-IP Releases Survey of Network on Chip Architectures

BEAVERTON, Ore. -- May 13, 2008 -- OCP-IP today announced the availability of a white paper discussing a survey of Network-on-chip (NoC) proposals. NoCs replace dedicated, design-specific wires with scalable, general purpose, multi-hop networks. NoCs can provide separation between computation and communications, serve as a platform for test, and support IP reuse increasing engineering productivity and decreasing time to market. This paper gives an overview of the state-of-the-art regarding network-on-chip proposals.

The survey contains sections on NoC Architecture Comparison, Comparison Criteria, NoC Evaluation Methods, and NoC Router Implementation. NoC Architecture Comparison discusses switching policy, topology, routing, quality-of-service, as well as testing and fault tolerance. NoC Evaluation Methods covers evaluation metrics and example test cases. Router Implementation discusses router parameters, minimum latency, area and operating frequency.

This paper cites numerous examples from literature selected to highlight the contemporary approaches and reported implementation results.

A copy of the survey can be downloaded at: http://www.ocpip.org/socket/whitepapers/

Work on the survey of NoCs paper was completed by Tampere University of Technology and the OCP-IP NoC Benchmarking Group. For the latest up-to-date information on the work of this group please see the OCP-IP Newsletter at: http://www.ocpip.org/pressroom/newsletters/

About OCP-IP

The OCP International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP), formed in 2001, promotes and supports the Open Core Protocol (OCP) as the complete socket standard ensuring rapid creation and integration of interoperable virtual components. OCP-IP's Governing Steering Committee participants include: Nokia (NYSE: NOK - News), Sonics Inc., Synopsys (SNPS), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN - News), and Toshiba Semiconductor Group (including Toshiba America TAEC). OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation delivering the first fully supported, openly licensed, core-centric protocol comprehensively fulfilling system-level integration requirements. The OCP facilitates IP core reusability and reduces design time, risk, and manufacturing costs for SoC designs. For additional background and membership information, visit www.OCPIP.org.