CROSS-LAYER DESIGN, OPTIMIZATION AND PROTOTYPING OF NoCs FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF HOMOGENEOUS MANY-CORE SYSTEMS

This thesis provides a whole set of design methods to enable and manage the runtime heterogeneity of features-rich industry-ready Tile-Based Networkon- Chips at different abstraction layers (Architecture Design, Network Assembling, Testing of NoC, Runtime Operation). The key idea is to maintain the functionalities of the original layers, and to improve the performance of architectures by allowing, joint optimization and layer coordinations. In general purpose systems, we address the microarchitectural challenges by codesigning and co-optimizing feature-rich architectures. In application-specific NoCs, we emphasize the event notification, so that the platform is continuously under control. At the network assembly level, this thesis proposes a Hold Time Robustness technique, to tackle the hold time issue in synchronous NoCs. At the network architectural level, the choice of a suitable synchronization paradigm requires a boost of synthesis flow as well as the coexistence with the DVFS. On one hand this implies the coexistence of mesochronous synchronizers in the network with dual-clock FIFOs at network boundaries. On the other hand, dual-clock FIFOs may be placed across inter-switch links hence removing the need for mesochronous synchronizers. This thesis will study the implications of the above approaches both on the design flow and on the performance and power quality metrics of the network. Once the manycore system is composed together, the issue of testing it arises. This thesis takes on this challenge and engineers various testing infrastructures. At the upper abstraction layer, the thesis addresses the issue of managing the fully operational system and proposes a congestion management technique named HACS. Moreover, some of the ideas of this thesis will undergo an FPGA prototyping. Finally, we provide some features for emerging technology by characterizing the power consumption of Optical NoC Interfaces

The Fifth NASA Symposium on VLSI Design

The fifth annual NASA Symposium on VLSI Design had 13 sessions including Radiation Effects, Architectures, Mixed Signal, Design Techniques, Fault Testing, Synthesis, Signal Processing, and other Featured Presentations. The symposium provides insights into developments in VLSI and digital systems which can be used to increase data systems performance. The presentations share insights into next generation advances that will serve as a basis for future VLSI design

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures

Driving and Protection of High Density High Temperature Power Module for Electric Vehicle Application

There has been an increasing trend for the commercialization of electric vehicles (EVs) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on petroleum. However, a key technical barrier to their wide application is the development of high power density electric drive systems due to limited space within EVs. High temperature environment inherent in EVs further introduces a new level of complexity. Under high power density and high temperature operation, system reliability and safety also become important. This dissertation deals with the development of advanced driving and protection technologies for high temperature high density power module capable of operating under the harsh environment of electric vehicles, while ensuring system reliability and safety under short circuit conditions. Several related research topics will be discussed in this dissertation. First, an active gate driver (AGD) for IGBT modules is proposed to improve their overall switching performance. The proposed one has the capability of reducing the switching loss, delay time, and Miller plateau duration during turn-on and turn-off transient without sacrificing current and voltage stress. Second, a board-level integrated silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET power module is developed for high temperature and high power density application. Specifically, a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based gate driver board is designed and fabricated through chip-on-board (COB) technique. Also, a 1200 V / 100 A SiC MOSFET phase-leg power module is developed utilizing high temperature packaging technologies. Third, a comprehensive short circuit ruggedness evaluation and numerical investigation of up-to-date commercial silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs is presented. The short circuit capability of three types of commercial 1200 V SiC MOSFETs is tested under various conditions. The experimental short circuit behaviors are compared and analyzed through numerical thermal dynamic simulation. Finally, according to the short circuit ruggedness evaluation results, three short circuit protection methods are proposed to improve the reliability and overall cost of the SiC MOSFET based converter. A comparison is made in terms of fault response time, temperature dependent characteristics, and applications to help designers select a proper protection method

Design and Validation of Network-on-Chip Architectures for the Next Generation of Multi-synchronous, Reliable, and Reconfigurable Embedded Systems

NETWORK-ON-CHIP (NoC) design is today at a crossroad. On one hand, the design principles to efficiently implement interconnection networks in the resource-constrained on-chip setting have stabilized. On the other hand, the requirements on embedded system design are far from stabilizing. Embedded systems are composed by assembling together heterogeneous components featuring differentiated operating speeds and ad-hoc counter measures must be adopted to bridge frequency domains. Moreover, an unmistakable trend toward enhanced reconfigurability is clearly underway due to the increasing complexity of applications. At the same time, the technology effect is manyfold since it provides unprecedented levels of system integration but it also brings new severe constraints to the forefront: power budget restrictions, overheating concerns, circuit delay and power variability, permanent fault, increased probability of transient faults. Supporting different degrees of reconfigurability and flexibility in the parallel hardware platform cannot be however achieved with the incremental evolution of current design techniques, but requires a disruptive approach and a major increase in complexity. In addition, new reliability challenges cannot be solved by using traditional fault tolerance techniques alone but the reliability approach must be also part of the overall reconfiguration methodology. In this thesis we take on the challenge of engineering a NoC architectures for the next generation systems and we provide design methods able to overcome the conventional way of implementing multi-synchronous, reliable and reconfigurable NoC. Our analysis is not only limited to research novel approaches to the specific challenges of the NoC architecture but we also co-design the solutions in a single integrated framework. Interdependencies between different NoC features are detected ahead of time and we finally avoid the engineering of highly optimized solutions to specific problems that however coexist inefficiently together in the final NoC architecture. To conclude, a silicon implementation by means of a testchip tape-out and a prototype on a FPGA board validate the feasibility and effectivenes

NASA Space Engineering Research Center Symposium on VLSI Design

The NASA Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) is proud to offer, at its second symposium on VLSI design, presentations by an outstanding set of individuals from national laboratories and the electronics industry. These featured speakers share insights into next generation advances that will serve as a basis for future VLSI design. Questions of reliability in the space environment along with new directions in CAD and design are addressed by the featured speakers

Precise Timing of Digital Signals: Circuits and Applications

With the rapid advances in process technologies, the performance of state-of-the-art integrated circuits is improving steadily. The drive for higher performance is accompanied with increased emphasis on meeting timing constraints not only at the design phase but during device operation as well. Fortunately, technology advancements allow for even more precise control of the timing of digital signals, an advantage which can be used to provide solutions that can address some of the emerging timing issues. In this thesis, circuit and architectural techniques for the precise timing of digital signals are explored. These techniques are demonstrated in applications addressing timing issues in modern digital systems. A methodology for slow-speed timing characterization of high-speed pipelined datapaths is proposed. The technique uses a clock-timing circuit to create shifted versions of a slow-speed clock. These clocks control the data flow in the pipeline in the test mode. Test results show that the design provides an average timing resolution of 52.9ps in 0.18μm CMOS technology. Results also demonstrate the ability of the technique to track the performance of high-speed pipelines at a reduced clock frequency and to test the clock-timing circuit itself. In order to achieve higher resolutions than that of an inverter/buffer stage, a differential (vernier) delay line is commonly used. To allow for the design of differential delay lines with programmable delays, a digitally-controlled delay-element is proposed. The delay element is monotonic and achieves a high degree of transfer characteristics' (digital code vs. delay) linearity. Using the proposed delay element, a sub-1ps resolution is demonstrated experimentally in 0.18μm CMOS. The proposed delay element with a fixed delay step of 2ps is used to design a high-precision all-digital phase aligner. High-precision phase alignment has many applications in modern digital systems such as high-speed memory controllers, clock-deskew buffers, and delay and phase-locked loops. The design is based on a differential delay line and a variation tolerant phase detector using redundancy. Experimental results show that the phase aligner's range is from -264ps to +247ps which corresponds to an average delay step of approximately 2.43ps. For various input phase difference values, test results show that the difference is reduced to less than 2ps at the output of the phase aligner. On-chip time measurement is another application that requires precise timing. It has applications in modern automatic test equipment and on-chip characterization of jitter and skew. In order to achieve small conversion time, a flash time-to-digital converter is proposed. Mismatch between the various delay comparators limits the time measurement precision. This is demonstrated through an experiment in which a 6-bit, 2.5ps resolution flash time-to-digital converter provides an effective resolution of only 4-bits. The converter achieves a maximum conversion rate of 1.25GSa/s

NASA SBIR abstracts of 1990 phase 1 projects

The research objectives of the 280 projects placed under contract in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1990 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 program are described. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses in response to NASA's 1990 SBIR Phase 1 Program Solicitation. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 280, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. The document also includes Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference in the 1990 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA field center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number

Laitteistokiihdytetyn vuoronnuksen suorituskykyanalyysi

Performance analysis of heterogeneous MPSoCs (Multiprocessor System-on-Chip) is difficult. The non-determinism of parallel computation, communication delays and memory accesses force the system components into complex interaction. Hardware acceleration is used both to speed up the computations and the scheduling on MPSoCs. Finding an accompanying software structuring and efficient scheduling algorithms is not a straightforward task. In this thesis we investigate the use of simulation, measurement and modeling methods for analyzing the performance of heterogeneous MPSoCs. The viewpoint of this thesis is in simulation and modeling: How a high abstraction level simulation methodology can be used in modeling and analyzing of parallel systems based on MPSoCs. In particular we are interested in efficient use of hardware accelerated scheduling mechanisms and how they can be analyzed. Both parallel simulation and simulation of parallel systems contains many different methods, tools and approaches that attempt to balance between competing goals and cope with a specific subset of the problem space. Challenge is that in all approaches most of the simulation and modeling related problems remain and new challenges emerge. This thesis shows that the resource network methodology and dynamic scheduling models are a viable approach in modeling heterogeneous MPSoCs with accelerators. Concrete contributions are based on upgrading an existing simulation framework to support parallelism. Main contribution is on one hand that modeling concepts have been widened, and on the other hand that the supporting mechanisms have been implemented. The thesis work in progress was published in a peer reviewed international scientific workshop and the final results in a peer reviewed international scientific conference. The toolset has also been used in multiuniversity organized teaching and by the industry.Heterogeenisten moniydinjärjestelmien suorituskykyanalyysi on haasteellista. Laskennan epä-deterministisyys, kommunikaatioviiveet ja lukuisat muistioperaatiot saattavat järjestelmän komponentit monimutkaisiin vuorovaikutussuhteisiin. Laitteistokiihdytettyjä ajoitusmenetelmiä käytetään nopeuttamaan ajoituspäätöksiä. Sopivan ohjelmarakenteen ja tehokkaiden ajoitusalgoritmien löytäminen ei ole helppoa. Tässä työssä tutkitaan miten simulointi-, mittaus- ja mallinnusmenetelmiä voi käyttää laitteistokiihdytettyjen moniydinjärjestelmien suorituskykyanalyysiin. Työn näkökulma on simuloinnissa ja mallinnuksessa: Miten korkean abstraktiotason simulointimenetelmät soveltuvat moniydinjärjestelmiin pohjautuvien rinnakkaisten järjestelmien mallinnukseen ja suorituskykyanalyysiin. Erityisen kiinnostuksen kohteena on laitteistokiihdytteisten ajoitusmenetelmien tehokas käyttö sekä analysointi. Rinnakkaissimulointi pitää sisällään erilaisia menetelmiä, työkaluja ja lähestymistapoja jotka pyrkivät tasapainottelemaan ristiriitaisten tavoitteiden välillä. Haasteena on se, että kaikissa lähestymistavoissa simulaation ja mallinnuksen useimmat ongelmat säilyvät ja uusia ongelmia ilmaantuu. Työn tulokset viittaavat siihen että resurssiverkkopohjainen menetelmä dynaamisen ajoituksen kanssa on toimiva lähestymistapa rinnakkaisten järjestelmien suorituskykyanalyysiin. Työn konkreettiset tulokset pitävät sisällään olemassa olevan simulointiympäristön päivittämisen rinnakkaisuutta tukevaksi. Keskeinen tulos on toisaalta se että mallinnusmenetelmiä on laajennettu ja toisaalta se että näitä tukevat mekanismit on toteutettu. Keskeneräisen työn tulokset on julkaistu vertaisarvioidussa tieteellisessä seminaarissa ja valmiin työn tulokset vertaisarvioidussa tieteellisessä konferenssissa. Simulointiympäristöä on käytetty usean yliopiston järjestämässä yhteisopetuksessa sekä teollisuudessa