Application-specific NoC architecture customization using long-range links

Networks-on-chip (NoC) represent a promising solution to complex on-chip communication problems. The NoC communication architectures considered in the literature are based on either completely regular or fully customized topologies. This chapter presents a methodology to automatically synthesize an architecture which is neither regular, nor fully customized. Instead, the resulting communication architecture is a superposition of a standard mesh network and a few long-range links which induce small world effects. Indeed, the few application-specific longrange links we insert significantly increase the critical traffic workload at which the network transitions from a free to a congested state. This way, we can exploit the benefits offered by both complete regularity and partial topology customization.