A Low-Power Dual Routing Table Multicast-Supported Router for NoC-Based Neuromorphic Hardware

Abstract

Inspired by the biological brain, neuromorphic hardware has gained significant attention due to its higher energy efficiency. Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture offers an excellent and scalable solution to implement large-scale spiking neural network hardware. Efficient routers are essential to ensure the high energy efficiency of NoC-based neuromorphic hardware. In this paper, a low power dual routing table multicast-supported router is proposed for large-scale NoC-based neuromorphic hardware. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed multicast scheme reduces transmission time by more than 62.2% compared to unicast. The router achieves an ultra-low energy consumption of 4.4 × 10^-2pJ/bit and a compact area of 0.011mm².