A comparative review of adaptive routing approach for network-on-chip router architecture

Based on Moore’s prediction, the future integrated systems will contain billions of transistors with hundreds of IP core to undergo complex multimedia delivery and networks services. In order to continue the relevancy of Moore’s law, Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures have been proposed. The bus structure in System-on-Chip (SoC) is swapped by a network with routers and wires. Routers in NoC are responsible to route packets based on the routing algorithms. For various system, there are a lot of different algorithms to suit with each system requirement. Routing algorithm is further divided into two which include oblivious routing algorithm and adaptive routing algorithm. This paper presents a review of different types of well-known router architecture in NoC. The routers are classified by respect to the adaptive routing algorithms with a view of the performance characteristics depending on the application requirements in NoC. The outline and features of several router architectures are reviewed and analyzed.