A MAC protocol for reliable broadcast communications in wireless network-on-chip

Abstract

The Wireless Network-on-Chip (WNoC) paradigm holds considerable promise for the implementation of fast and efficient on-chip networks in manycore chips. Among other advantages, wireless communications provide natural broadcast support, a highly desirable feature in manycore architectures yet difficult to achieve with current interconnects. As technology advancements allow the integration of more wireless interfaces within the same chip, a critical aspect is how to efficiently share the wireless medium while reliably carrying broadcast traffic. This paper introduces the {Broadcast, Reliability, Sensing} protocol (BRS-MAC), which exploits the particularities of the WNoC context to meet its stringent requirements. BRS-MAC is flexible and employs a collision detection and notification scheme that scales with the number of receivers, making it compatible with broadcast communications. The proposed protocol is modeled and evaluated, showing a clear latency advantage with respect to wired on-chip networks and WNoCs with token passing.