Papers
Topics
Authors
Recent
Search
2000 character limit reached

Towards Scalable Multi-Chip Wireless Networks with Near-Field Time Reversal

Published 26 Apr 2024 in cs.ET and eess.SP | (2404.17325v2)

Abstract: The concept of Wireless Network-on-Chip (WNoC) has emerged as a potential solution to address the escalating communication demands of modern computing systems due to its low-latency, versatility, and reconfigurability. However, for WNoC to fulfill its potential, it is essential to establish multiple high-speed wireless links across chips. Unfortunately, the compact and enclosed nature of computing packages introduces significant challenges in the form of Co-Channel Interference and Inter-Symbol Interference, which not only hinder the deployment of multiple spatial channels but also severely restrict the symbol rate of each individual channel. In this paper, we posit that Time Reversal (TR) could be effective in addressing both impairments in this static scenario thanks to its spatiotemporal focusing capabilities even in the near field. Through comprehensive full-wave simulations and bit error rate analysis in multiple scenarios and at multiple frequency bands, we provide evidence that TR can increase the symbol rate by an order of magnitude, enabling the deployment of multiple concurrent links and achieving aggregate speeds exceeding 100 Gb/s. Finally, we evaluate the impact of reducing the sampling rate of the TR filter on the achievable speeds, paving the way to practical TR-based wireless communications at the chip scale.

Definition Search Book Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com
References (44)
  1. G. Nychis, C. Fallin, T. Moscibroda, O. Mutlu, and S. Seshan, “On-chip networks from a networking perspective: congestion and scalability in many-core interconnects,” in Proceedings of the SIGCOMM, 2012, pp. 407–18.
  2. B. Zimmer, R. Venkatesan, Y. S. Shao, J. Clemons, M. Fojtik, N. Jiang, B. Keller, A. Klinefelter, N. Pinckney, P. Raina et al., “A 0.32–128 tops, scalable multi-chip-module-based deep neural network inference accelerator with ground-referenced signaling in 16 nm,” IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 920–932, 2020.
  3. F. Lemic, S. Abadal, W. Tavernier, P. Stroobant, D. Colle, E. Alarcón, J. Marquez-Barja, and J. Famaey, “Survey on terahertz nanocommunication and networking: A top-down perspective,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 1506–1543, 2021.
  4. H. Elayan, R. M. Shubair, J. M. Jornet, and P. Johari, “Terahertz channel model and link budget analysis for intrabody nanoscale communication,” IEEE transactions on nanobioscience, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 491–503, 2017.
  5. A. Todri-Sanial, R. Ramos, H. Okuno, J. Dijon, A. Dhavamani, M. Wislicenus, K. Lilienthal, B. Uhlig, T. Sadi, V. Georgiev, A. Asenov, S. Amoroso, A. Pender, A. Brown, C. Millar, F. Motzfeld, B. Gotsmann, J. Liang, G. Gonçalves, N. Rupesinghe, and K. Teo, “A Survey of Carbon Nanotube Interconnects for Energy Efficient Integrated Circuits,” IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 47–62, 2017.
  6. X. Timoneda, S. Abadal, A. Franques, D. Manessis, J. Zhou, J. Torrellas, E. Alarcón, and A. Cabellos-Aparicio, “Engineer the channel and adapt to it: Enabling wireless intra-chip communication,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 68, no. 5, pp. 3247–3258, 2020.
  7. S. Deb, A. Ganguly, P. P. Pande, B. Belzer, and D. Heo, “Wireless NoC as Interconnection Backbone for Multicore Chips: Promises and Challenges,” IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 228–239, 2012.
  8. A. K. Kodi, A. I. Sikder, D. Ditomaso, S. Kaya, D. Matolak, and W. Rayess, “Kilo-core Wireless Network-on-Chips (NoCs) Architectures,” in Proceedings of the NANOCOM ’15, 2015, p. Art. 33.
  9. S. Shamim, N. Mansoor, R. S. Narde, V. Kothandapani, A. Ganguly, and J. Venkataraman, “A Wireless Interconnection Framework for Seamless Inter and Intra-chip Communication in Multichip Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Computers, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 389–402, 2017.
  10. S. Abadal, A. Mestres, J. Torrellas, E. Alarcón, and A. Cabellos-Aparicio, “Medium access control in wireless network-on-chip: A context analysis,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 56, no. 6, pp. 172–178, 2018.
  11. V. Pano, I. Tekin, I. Yilmaz, Y. Liu, K. R. Dandekar, and B. Taskin, “TSV antennas for multi-band wireless communication,” IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 100–113, 2020.
  12. A. Karkar, T. Mak, K.-F. Tong, and A. Yakovlev, “A Survey of Emerging Interconnects for On-Chip Efficient Multicast and Broadcast in Many-Cores,” IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 58–72, 2016.
  13. D. Matolak, S. Kaya, and A. Kodi, “Channel modeling for wireless networks-on-chips,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 51, no. 6, pp. 180–186, 2013.
  14. J. W. Holloway, G. C. Dogiamis, and R. Han, “A 105Gb/s Dielectric-Waveguide Link in 130nm BiCMOS Using Channelized 220-to-335GHz Signal and Integrated Waveguide Coupler,” in Proceedings of the ISSCC ’21, 2021, pp. 27–29.
  15. C. Yi, D. Kim, S. Solanki, J. H. Kwon, M. Kim, S. Jeon, Y. C. Ko, and I. Lee, “Design and Performance Analysis of THz Wireless Communication Systems for Chip-to-Chip and Personal Area Networks Applications,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 1785–1796, 2021.
  16. J. M. Jornet and I. F. Akyildiz, “Femtosecond-long pulse-based modulation for terahertz band communication in nanonetworks,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 62, no. 5, pp. 1742–1754, 2014.
  17. A. Franques, S. Abadal, H. Hassanieh, and J. Torrellas, “Fuzzy-token: An adaptive mac protocol for wireless-enabled manycores,” in 2021 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE).   IEEE, 2021, pp. 1657–1662.
  18. D. Bertozzi, G. Dimitrakopoulos, J. Flich, and S. Sonntag, “The fast evolving landscape of on-chip communication,” Design Automation for Embedded Systems, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 59–76, 2015.
  19. G. Lerosey, J. De Rosny, A. Tourin, A. Derode, G. Montaldo, and M. Fink, “Time reversal of electromagnetic waves,” Physical review letters, vol. 92, no. 19, p. 193904, 2004.
  20. G. Lerosey, J. De Rosny, A. Tourin, and M. Fink, “Focusing beyond the diffraction limit with far-field time reversal,” Science, vol. 315, no. 5815, pp. 1120–1122, 2007.
  21. F. Han, Y. H. Yang, B. Wang, Y. Wu, and K. J. Liu, “Time-reversal division multiple access over multi-path channels,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 60, no. 7, pp. 1953–1965, 2012.
  22. Q. Xu, C. Jiang, Y. Han, B. Wang, and K. J. Liu, “Waveforming: An Overview With Beamforming,” IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 132–149, 2018.
  23. G. C. Alexandropoulos, A. Mokh, R. Khayatzadeh, J. de Rosny, M. Kamoun, A. Ourir, A. Tourin, M. Fink, and M. Debbah, “Time reversal for 6g spatiotemporal focusing: Recent experiments, opportunities, and challenges,” IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, 2022.
  24. M. J. Chabalko and A. P. Sample, “Electromagnetic time reversal focusing of near field waves in metamaterials,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 109, no. 26, 2016.
  25. A. Bandara, F. Rodríguez-Galán, E. P. de Santana, P. H. Bolívar, E. Alarcón, and S. Abadal, “Exploration of time reversal for wireless communications within computing packages,” Proceedings of the 10th ACM International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication (NANOCOM), 2023.
  26. F. Rodríguez-Galán, A. Bandara, E. P. de Santana, P. H. Bolívar, S. Abadal, and E. Alarcón, “Collective communication patterns using time-reversal terahertz links at the chip scale,” in Proceedings of IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 2023.
  27. G. Bellanca, G. Calò, A. E. Kaplan, P. Bassi, and V. Petruzzelli, “Integrated vivaldi plasmonic antenna for wireless on-chip optical communications,” Optics express, vol. 25, no. 14, pp. 16 214–16 227, 2017.
  28. W. Rayess, D. W. Matolak, S. Kaya, and A. K. Kodi, “Antennas and Channel Characteristics for Wireless Networks on Chips,” Wireless Personal Communications, vol. 95, no. 4, pp. 5039–5056, 2017.
  29. X. Timoneda, A. Cabellos-Aparicio, D. Manessis, E. Alarcón, and S. Abadal, “Channel characterization for chip-scale wireless communications within computing packages,” in 2018 Twelfth IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip (NOCS).   IEEE, 2018, pp. 1–8.
  30. F. Gutierrez, S. Agarwal, K. Parrish, and T. S. Rappaport, “On-chip integrated antenna structures in cmos for 60 ghz wpan systems,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 27, no. 8, pp. 1367–1378, 2009.
  31. H.-H. Yeh, N. Hiramatsu, and K. L. Melde, “The design of broadband 60 ghz amc antenna in multi-chip rf data transmission,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 1623–1630, 2012.
  32. S. Hwangbo, R. Bowrothu, H.-i. Kim, and Y.-K. Yoon, “Integrated compact planar inverted-f antenna (pifa) with a shorting via wall for millimeter-wave wireless chip-to-chip (c2c) communications in 3d-sip,” in 2019 IEEE 69th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC).   IEEE, 2019, pp. 983–988.
  33. K. Duraisamy, R. G. Kim, and P. P. Pande, “Enhancing performance of wireless nocs with distributed mac protocols,” in Sixteenth International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design.   IEEE, 2015, pp. 406–411.
  34. N. Mansoor and A. Ganguly, “Reconfigurable wireless network-on-chip with a dynamic medium access mechanism,” in Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip, 2015, pp. 1–8.
  35. B. Ollé, P. Talarn, A. Cabellos-Aparicio, F. Lemic, E. Alarcón, and S. Abadal, “Multi-channel medium access control protocols for wireless networks within computing packages,” in 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2023, pp. 1–5.
  36. A. Ganguly, S. Abadal, I. Thakkar, N. E. Jerger, M. Riedel, M. Babaie, R. Balasubramonian, A. Sebastian, S. Pasricha, and B. Taskin, “Interconnects for dna, quantum, in-memory, and optical computing: Insights from a panel discussion,” IEEE micro, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 40–49, 2022.
  37. S. Abadal, C. Han, and J. M. Jornet, “Wave propagation and channel modeling in chip-scale wireless communications: A survey from millimeter-wave to terahertz and optics,” IEEE access, vol. 8, pp. 278–293, 2019.
  38. Y. Chen and C. Han, “Channel modeling and characterization for wireless networks-on-chip communications in the millimeter wave and terahertz bands,” IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological and Multi-Scale Communications, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 30–43, 2019.
  39. O. Markish, O. Katz, B. Sheinman, D. Corcos, and D. Elad, “On-chip millimeter wave antennas and transceivers,” in Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip, 2015, pp. 1–7.
  40. S. Wright, R. Polastre, H. Gan, L. Buchwalter, R. Horton, P. Andry, E. Sprogis, C. Patel, C. Tsang, J. Knickerbocker et al., “Characterization of micro-bump c4 interconnects for si-carrier sop applications,” in 56th Electronic Components and Technology Conference 2006.   IEEE, 2006, pp. 8–pp.
  41. X. Zhang, J. K. Lin, S. Wickramanayaka, S. Zhang, R. Weerasekera, R. Dutta, K. F. Chang, K.-J. Chui, H. Y. Li, D. S. Wee Ho et al., “Heterogeneous 2.5 d integration on through silicon interposer,” Applied physics reviews, vol. 2, no. 2, 2015.
  42. A. Kannan, N. E. Jerger, and G. H. Loh, “Enabling interposer-based disintegration of multi-core processors,” in Proceedings of the 48th international symposium on Microarchitecture, 2015, pp. 546–558.
  43. M. F. Imani, S. Abadal, and P. del Hougne, “Metasurface-programmable wireless network-on-chip,” Advanced Science, 2022.
  44. Computer Simulation Technology (CST), “CST Microwave Studio,” 2022. [Online]. Available: http://www.cst.com

Summary

  • The paper demonstrates that time reversal achieves spatiotemporal energy focusing to mitigate inter-symbol and co-channel interference in wireless network-on-chip systems.
  • Simulations with full-wave models validate TR's effectiveness across various frequencies and chip configurations, even with non-ideal sampling conditions.
  • The study reveals that incorporating TR can support higher data rates and scalable architectures, paving the way for next-generation on-chip communication.

Enhancing Multi-Chip Wireless Networks Through Time Reversal Techniques

Introduction

The escalating demands of modern computing systems have pushed the boundaries of communication technologies within computing packages. Wireless Network-on-Chip (WNoC), emerging as a potential solution, must efficiently manage issues like Co-Channel Interference (CCI) and Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) to be viable. The promising application of Time Reversal (TR), known for its spatiotemporal focusing capabilities, is proposed as a method to enhance symbol rates and overall communication reliability in such networks, potentially reaching speeds exceeding 100 Gb/s.

TR's Role in Mitigating Interference

TR uses the spatiotemporal properties of the wireless channel to focus energy efficiently at the receiver's location, countering the effects of ISI and CCI in highly reverberant environments like multi-chip systems. By employing the time-reversed impulse response of the channel as a matched filter, TR can significantly steer the energy toward the intended receiver while minimizing leakage to others. This feature is especially beneficial in environments where antenna elements are static, allowing for consistent channel characteristics.

Methodological Approach

The research involves comprehensive simulations using full-wave models to analyze the performance of wireless links under TR in multi-chiplet systems at varying frequencies. The study also assesses the impact of non-ideal TR filters with finite sampling rates on the communication efficacy, thereby addressing practical deployment issues in real-world scenarios.

Key Results and Findings

  • TR considerably increases the symbol rate, facilitating the deployment of multiple concurrent wireless links.
  • Simulations indicate that TR can maintain effective focus and energy concentration across a range of frequencies, confirming the robustness of TR against frequency variations.
  • An increase in the number of chiplets introduces complexity, affecting the system performance due to varying channel characteristics and increased reflections.
  • Implementing TR with practical, non-ideal filters (finite sampling rate) shows a graceful degradation in performance, suggesting that TR can be effectively realized even with certain technical constraints.
  • The theoretical exploration concludes that TR could feasibly support aggregate speeds significantly beyond traditional methods without TR, particularly in static configurations typical of on-chip environments.

Implications and Future Research Directions

The application of TR in WNoC not only promises enhanced data rates and reduced latency but also opens pathways for more scalable and flexible chip architectures. Future studies could further optimize the TR process, explore its integration with dynamic channel estimation techniques for environments with slight movements, and examine the trade-offs in power consumption and computational overhead. Additionally, expanding the research to include experimental validations of the simulated results would strengthen the case for TR in practical applications.

In conclusion, this study contributes to the understanding of TR in WNoC, highlighting its potential to meet the robust and high-speed communication needs of future multi-core computing systems. Further explorations and optimizations of this technique could lead to significant advancements in the design and functionality of next-generation chips.

File Document Download Save Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com Markdown

Paper to Video (Beta)

Whiteboard

No one has generated a whiteboard explanation for this paper yet.

Ai Sparkles Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com Sign Up to Generate

Open Problems

We found no open problems mentioned in this paper.

Collections

Sign up for free to add this paper to one or more collections.

User Circle Single Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com Sign Up

Tweets

Sign up for free to view the 2 tweets with 26 likes about this paper.

User Circle Single Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com Sign Up for Free