Published In
Chaos
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-28-2007
Subjects
Systems on a chip -- Computer-aided design, Molecular electronics, Nanotechnology
Abstract
Future nanoscale electronics built up from an Avogadro number of components need efficient, highly scalable, and robust means of communication in order to be competitive with traditional silicon approaches. In recent years, the networks-on-chip (NoC) paradigm emerged as a promising solution to interconnect challenges in silicon-based electronics. Current NoC architectures are either highly regular or fully customized, both of which represent implausible assumptions for emerging bottom-up self-assembled molecular electronics that are generally assumed to have a high degree of irregularity and imperfection. Here, we pragmatically and experimentally investigate important design tradeoffs and properties of an irregular, abstract, yet physically plausible three–dimensional (3D) small-world interconnect fabric that is inspired by modern network-on-chip paradigms. We vary the framework’s key parameters, such as the connectivity, number of switch nodes, and distribution of long- versus short-range connections, and measure the network’s relevant communication characteristics. We further explore the robustness against link failures and the ability and efficiency to solve a simple toy problem, the synchronization task. The results confirm that (1) computation in irregular assemblies is a promising and disruptive computing paradigm for self-assembled nanoscale electronics and (2) that 3D small-world interconnect fabrics with a power-law decaying distribution of shortcut lengths are physically plausible and have major advantages over local two–dimensional and 3D regular topologies.
DOI
10.1063/1.2740566
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/8320
Citation Details
C. Teuscher. Nature-Inspired Interconnects for Self-Assembled Large-Scale Network-on-Chip Designs. Chaos, 17(2):026106, 2007.
Description
This is the publisher's final pdf. Article appears in Chaos (http://chaos.aip.org/) and is copyrighted (2007) by the American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics.