Efficient surface-wave-based network-on-chip architecture for spiking-neural-network

Karkar, AJM; Mak, T; Yakovlev, A

doi:10.1109/NTICT.2017.7976117

Efficient surface-wave-based network-on-chip architecture for spiking-neural-network

Lookup NU author(s): Ammar Karkar, Professor Alex Yakovlev

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Abstract

© 2017 IEEE. Networks-on-chip (NoC) has been proven to satisfy different on-chip communication requirements in terms of costs, performance, and reliabilities. This has been proven true especially for spiking neural network (SNN) with its high multicast communication demands. However, metal-wires that form the foundation for regular NoCs face a set of challenges since metal-wires have been stretched to their physical limits with the relentless technology scaling. Thus, this paper tackles SNN communication issues on two fronts: Firstly, the physical interconnect layer by attempting to prototyping a new and promising type of wireless interconnects called surface-wave interconnects (SWI). Secondly, the architectural level by proposing NoC architecture enabled by SWI and further more effective for multicast communication. A surface-wave has been demonstrated for range 14-25 GHz with improvements over free-space propagation in S21 up to 20 dB. Furthermore, based on this technology a hybrid wire and surface-wave architecture is developed and evaluated to demonstrate its potentials for SNN, which found to perform 95% better than related-work. Consequently, this emerging technology would provide the high efficiency that are required for future NoC-based SNN systems.