Spidergon: a novel on-chip communication network

Abstract

Summary form only given. The SoC (System on Chip) design demands for novel architectural and circuital solutions to cope with the global wires issue, pushing the on-chip communication as a crucial and precious resource. In the context of the communication centric paradigm and according to a layered based design, it is foreseen that current on-chip shared bus will be, at least partially, replaced by a micronetwork interconnection implementing a flexible packet-based communication (A. Jantsch and H. Tenhunen, "Networks on Chip", Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003). We state that the availability of an efficient on-chip communication platform is one of the most important enabling factors for the development of efficient and cost effective multi processor SoC in the near and long-term future. This summary presents the low cost, high performance on-chip communication network, called Spidergon, developed by the AST (Advanced System Technology) of STMicroelectronics as the possible evolution of STBus technology.