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On-Chip Networks and Testing-II. Aethereal NoC as Communication Fabric for SoC. Goosens et al., “Aetherial Network on Chip ...,” IEEE D&T Magazine, Sept-Oct 2005, 414-421. Vermeulen et al., “Bringing Communication Networks on a Chip: Test and Verification
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On-Chip Networks and Testing-II Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Aethereal NoC as Communication Fabric for SoC Goosens et al., “Aetherial Network on Chip ...,” IEEE D&T Magazine, Sept-Oct 2005, 414-421. Vermeulen et al., “Bringing Communication Networks on a Chip: Test and Verification Implications,” IEEE Communications Magazine, Sept. 2003, 74-81. Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Rationale for Aethereal • As SoC complexity grows, its communication infrastructure is a major concern. • Expert opinion says NoCs are increasingly likely to be the choice for on-chip communication because they provide structure, modularity, and performance advantages over alternative designs • Aethereal NoC is a research product from Philips to explore NoC-based SoC designs. • Vermeulen et al. [2] consider an Aethereal-based SoC design for multimedia applications and discuss how it can be tested and verified. Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Example SoC with Aethereal NoC • The picture shows routers, network interfaces, processor, memory, and memory-interface cores, and neighbor-links. Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Combined Guaranteed- Throughput (GT) and Best-Effort (BE) Router Conceptual View Hardware View Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Aethereal Chip: Contention-Free Routing Contention-free routing: network of three routers (R1, R2, and R3) at slot s = 2, with corresponding slot tables (T1, T2, and T3). Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Default Core-Based Testing • The default method assumes the cores are wrapped, according to IEEE1500 and uses dedicated TAMs to transport test data. • The example shows cores tested simultaneously by 4 TAMs. • Disadvantage: Wire congestion due to TAMs. Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
NoC Reuse Based Testing • NoC blocks (routers and network interfaces) are tested first (top). • If ok then NoC can be used to help test other cores (bottom). • Further, because routers are identical, their test data sets can be broadcast and applied concurrently and their responses can be compared to each other for mismatches (for go/no-go testing) Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Reuse-Based Test Scheduling C. Aktouf, “A Complete Strategy for Testing an On-Chip Multiprocessor Architecture,” IEEE D&T, Jan-Feb 2002, 18-28. C. Liu et al., “Reuse-Based Test Access and Integrated Test Scheduling for NoC,” DATE’06, 303-308 Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Complete Strategy Summary [1] • Homogeneous fine-grain, massively parallel, message-passing, multiprocessor in 2D topology • Testing in three phases: • Router Testing (by groups of cells) • RAM Block Testing (using BIST) • Distributed Processor Testing (using PMC model) Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Multiprocessor Architecture • Interconnection network on top – shading shows two cells communicating using shared buffers. • Cell Structure at the bottom. Each cell consists of Processor, Memory, and Router • Messages include relative x and y displacements, address, and data. Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Boundary-Scan Based Testing of Routers in Groups of Cells (GCs) Basic-cell groups (top) and test-circuit configuration for external test (right) Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Reuse-Based Test Access and Test Scheduling [2] Summary • 2D mesh architecture similar to [1]. • Each cell consists of a core and router. • Progressive reuse of network resources for transporting test data • Routers and cores tested concurrently Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
System Architecture • The top picture shows a 12-node system in which a particular SoC (ITC02 benchmark d695) has been mapped to 10 available nodes. • Two shaded cores are being tested using dedicated paths from external inputs to the core an from the core to an external output • The paper compares results to those in [1] that uses the GC approach (bottom) to testing routers first. 1x1 groups 2x2 groups Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Progressive Scheduling for Router Testing • Constraint: Only pretested routers can be reused for test-data transport, hence need for scheduling • Test responses are assumed to be processed on-chip or compressed and transported off-chip through dedicated paths • The picture shows 2x2 I/O, numbers represent groups of cells that can be tested simultaneously, in increasing order of group numbers. • Even though only 10 cells are occupied, for testing all 12 must be tested. • Only the router-under-test is in test mode, others on the path are in normal mode. Multicast network Unicast network Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
On-Chip Test Response Processing Using MISRs Using Comparators Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Integrated Test Scheduling • Consider the unicast network scheduling example from before: • Assume both bottom row routers have been tested in steps 1, 2, and 3. • We can reuse Input 2 and Output 2 to test bottom-row cores; at the same time we can reuse Input1 and Output 1 to test routers in group 4. • The paper gives an algorithm for scheduling such integrated testing Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
A Sample of Results • Col 2: Boundary-scan results from [1] assuming all routers are tested simultaneously - only router testing times are shown • Col 3: router testing time when network is reused (Savings over Col 2) • Col 4: Test bus results from TAM co-optimization by Iyengar et al. (DATE 2002) – discussed earlier. • Col 5: Routers and cores test separately • Col 6: Integrated testing (savings over Col 5) Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Conclusion • Testing research on NoC-based SoC is still in infancy. • Approaches are highly dependent on assumptions about the system and NoC architectures, hence hard to compare against each other. • ITRS projections, however, show that NoC is likely to be the dominant communication mechanism of the future SoC, hence this is good field of research to get into. Ob-Chip Networks and Testing
Bibliography • Goosens et al., “Aetherial Network on Chip ...,” IEEE D&T Magazine, Sept-Oct 2005, 414-421. • Vermeulen et al., “Bringing Communication Networks on a Chip: Test and Verification Implications,” IEEE Communications Magazine, Sept. 2003, 74-81. • C. Liu et al., “Reuse-Based Test Access and Integrated Test Scheduling for NoC,” DATE’06, 303-308. • C. Aktouf, “A Complete Strategy for Testing an On-Chip Multiprocessor Architecture,” IEEE D&T, Jan-Feb 2002, 18-28. • Nahvi and Ivanov, “A Packet Switching Communication-Based TAM for SoC,” ETW01, 81-86. Ob-Chip Networks and Testing