Fault-Tolerant Circular Routing Algorithm for 3D-NoC

Expanding Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) to the third dimension (3D-NoC) has been known as a promising solution for the latency challenges of future many-core Systems-on-Chip. 3D-NoC may take advantages of TSVs for vertical links which are shorter and faster than horizontal ones. Faults may occur in TSVs as well as the horizontal links though faults in TSVs are more costly. In this paper, we present a fault-tolerant routing algorithm targeting faults in both TSVs and horizontal links. The proposed routing algorithm is based on defining some circular routing paths which offers a deadlock-free routing for packets in mesh-based topologies. In addition to tolerating faults, these circular paths help in reducing congestion in the central part of the network at high injection rates. The proposed circular routing algorithm is able to tolerate all one-faulty links. In addition, it is shown that its performance is better than those of traditional methods