Asynchronous design of networks-on-chip

The Network-on-chip concept has evolved as a solution to a broad range of problems related to the design of complex systems-on-chip (SoC) with tenths or hundreds of (heterogeneous) IP-cores. The paper introduces the NoC concept, identifies a range of possible timing organizations (globally-synchronous, mesochronous, globally-asynchronous locally-synchronous and fully asynchronous), discusses the circuitry needed to implement these timing methodologies, and provides some implementation details for a couple of asynchronous NoCs designed at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The paper is written to support an invited talk at the NORCHIP'2007 conference.