Leaf: A Low-Overhead Asymmetric Frequency Controller For Noc Router Interconnects

The growing impact of the network on the overall power consumption of many-core systems introduces a need for mechanisms that reduce the power required for data communication without significantly impacting performance. This paper proposes a low-overhead mechanism for frequency control of individual channels in a Network-on-Chip system.The proposed mechanism is low-overhead, distributed and easy to tune for varying traffic, which are crucial aspects in a many-core context. This is primarily achieved by the asymmetry of the controller, which defines different responses for increases and decreases in performance requirements, allowing a channel to operate at the minimum required frequency without adversely affecting stability, necessary for subsequent voltage scaling.