Cluster-based topologies for 3D Networks-on-Chip using advanced inter-layer bus architecture

Three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs) have emerged as a viable candidate to achieve better performance and packaging density as compared to traditional two-dimensional (2D) ICs. In addition, combining the benefits of 3D ICs and Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) schemes provides a significant performance gain for 3D architectures. In recent years, through-silicon-via (TSV), employed for inter-layer connectivity (vertical channel), has attracted a lot of interest since it enables faster and more power efficient inter-layer communication across multiple stacked layers. The router-based and bus-based organizations are the two dominant architectures for utilizing TSVs as inter-layer communication channel in 3D architectures. Both approaches have some disadvantages. The former suffers from poor scalability and deteriorates the performance at high injection rates, and the latter consumes more area and power. The area overhead of TSVs reduces wafer utilization and yield, which can impact designing 3D architectures with a large number of TSVs. In this paper, two mesh-based topologies for 3D architectures are introduced to mitigate TSV footprint and power dissipation on each layer with a small performance penalty. On top of that, we propose a novel pipeline bus structure for inter-layer communication to improve the performance by reducing the delay and complexity of traditional bus arbitration. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.