Forecasting-Based Dynamic Virtual Channel Management for Power Reduction in Network-on-Chips

In this paper, a forecasting-based dynamic virtual channel allocation technique for reducing the power consumption of network on chips is introduced. Based on the network traffic as well as past link and total virtual channel utilizations, the technique dynamically forecasts the number of virtual channels that should be active. It is based on an exponential smoothing forecasting method that filters out short-term traffic fluctuations. In this technique, for low (high) traffic loads, a small (large) number of VCs are allocated to the corresponding input channel. To assess the efficacy of the proposed method, the network on chip has been simulated using uniform, transpose, hotspot, NED, and realistic GSM voice codec traffic profiles. Simulation results show that up to a 35% reduction in the buffer power consumption and up to 20% savings in the overall router power consumption may be achieved. The area and power dissipation overheads of the technique are negligible.