RIDER: Ring deflection router with buffers

The network-on-chip is becoming an increasingly important component of chip multiprocessors. Recently bufferless deflection routers were proposed, aiming to reduce hardware cost in comparison to classic virtual channel based routers, by eliminating router buffers. We propose RIDER, a low cost deflection router based on an internal rotating ring structure with minimal number of buffers. We compare RIDER with 16 buffers to a wormhole router with 12 buffers, a virtual channel buffered router with 64 buffers, to CHIPPER, a bufferless deflection router with no buffers, and to MinBD, a buffered deflection router with four buffers.