Design and Performance Evaluation of a High-Speed VLSI Router Using Efficient Buffering Techniques

Abstract

This paper presents the design and performance evaluation of a high-speed VLSI router optimized using advanced buffering techniques. As on-chip communication demands increase in modern System-on-Chip (SoC) architectures, efficient router design becomes critical for achieving low latency and high throughput. The proposed router architecture incorporates input buffering and virtual channel buffering to reduce congestion and improve data flow efficiency. The design is implemented using VLSI design principles and evaluated based on key performance metrics such as latency, throughput, area, and power consumption. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed buffering techniques significantly enhance router performance compared to conventional designs, making it suitable for high-speed Network-on-Chip (NoC) applications.

Introduction

The rapid growth of multicore processors and complex System-on-Chip (SoC) designs has increased demands on on-chip communication. Traditional bus-based architectures struggle to scale due to bandwidth, latency, and power constraints, making Network-on-Chip (NoC) a preferred solution. At the core of NoC performance is the router, which manages packet forwarding, arbitration, and congestion. Efficient buffering strategies are critical for reducing latency, improving throughput, and controlling power consumption.

Key Points:

1. Buffered Routers: Early FIFO buffering suffered from head-of-line (HOL) blocking, reducing throughput under heavy traffic. Virtual Channel (VC) buffering mitigates HOL blocking by allowing multiple logical channels per physical link, improving performance but increasing area and power overhead. Input-buffered routers reduce hardware complexity while maintaining scalability.

2. Advanced Buffering Techniques:

   • Shared and dynamic buffers allocate memory flexibly based on traffic, improving utilization and efficiency.

   • Power-aware buffering uses adaptive buffer resizing and power gating to reduce static energy consumption.

   • Hybrid approaches combine FIFO, VC, and adaptive control to balance latency, throughput, power, and area.

3. Literature Insights: Studies show VC routers outperform single-FIFO routers under heavy and bursty traffic but incur higher area and power costs. Input-buffered architectures offer a good compromise for VLSI implementations. Adaptive buffering and hybrid designs provide performance-power trade-offs suitable for modern NoCs.

4. Comparative Analysis: FPGA-based studies confirm VC routers achieve higher throughput and lower latency in high-load scenarios, while no-VC routers are simpler and more energy-efficient under low traffic. Optimal router design requires balancing performance, area, power, and complexity, often through hybrid or selectively applied VC buffering.

Conclusion

This paper presented the design and performance evaluation of a high-speed VLSI router optimized using efficient buffering techniques for Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures. By incorporating input buffering and virtual channel buffering, the proposed router effectively mitigates head-of-line blocking and reduces network congestion, leading to improved throughput and reduced latency. The implementation demonstrates that optimized buffering plays a crucial role in enhancing NoC router performance while maintaining reasonable area and power overhead. Comparative and analytical studies indicate that the proposed buffered router architecture outperforms conventional single FIFO-based designs, particularly under moderate to heavy traffic conditions. Although virtual channel buffering introduces additional hardware complexity, the observed performance gains justify its use in high-speed NoC systems. The results confirm that a balanced buffering strategy is essential for achieving scalable, efficient, and high-performance on-chip communication in modern System-on-Chip designs.

References

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(2025) — LNBN: Layer-Flexible Non-Blocking Bypass Network-on-Chip This 2025 work proposes a layer-flexible non-blocking bypass NoC architecture and includes experimental results and performance analysis of the router design, routing algorithm, and system overhead, along with detailed evaluation metrics

Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Sanjana Salunke, Revansiddappa Kinagi. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.