A multi-path routing strategy with guaranteed in-order packet delivery and fault-tolerance for networks on chip

In this work we present a multi-path routing strategy that guaran-tees in-order packet delivery for Networks on Chips (NoCs). We present a design methodology that uses the routing strategy to opti-mally spread the traffic in the NoC to minimize the network band-width needs and power consumption. We also integrate support for tolerance against transient and permanent failures in the NoC links in the methodology by utilizing spatial and temporal redundancy for transporting packets. Our experimental studies show large re-duction in network bandwidth requirements (36.86% on average) and power consumption (30.51% on average) compared to single-path systems. The area overhead of the proposed scheme is small (a modest 5% increase in network area). Hence, it is practical to be used in the on-chip domain.