Q-StaR: A Quasi-Static Routing Scheme for NoCs

Abstract

In networks-on-chip, static routing schemes are favored for their simplicity and predictability, but they cannot effectively balance network load due to the unawareness of runtime load distribution. Q-StaR discovers two factors (topology and traffic distribution) that determine the long-term trend of load distribution, and proposes N-Rank to extract this trend. The obtained information is used to guide BiDOR's route selection at runtime, thereby improving load balancing while retaining simplicity and predictability. Simulation validates that Q-StaR significantly outperforms the typical dimension-order routing (throughput under uniform traffic improved by 42.9\%, and mean/maximum latency under realistic workloads reduced by 86.4\%/95.3\%).