MBus: A System Integration Bus for the Modular Micro-Scale Computing Class
Pat Pannuto, Yoonmyung Lee, Ye-Sheng Kuo, zhiyoong foo, Benjamin Kempke, Gyouho Kim, Ronald G. Dreslinski, David Blaauw, Prabal Dutta

Citation
Pat Pannuto, Yoonmyung Lee, Ye-Sheng Kuo, zhiyoong foo, Benjamin Kempke, Gyouho Kim, Ronald G. Dreslinski, David Blaauw, Prabal Dutta. "MBus: A System Integration Bus for the Modular Micro-Scale Computing Class". submitted to Special Issue of IEEE Micro: Micro's Top Picks from Computer Architecture Conferences, May 2016.

Abstract
I/O has become the limiting factor in scaling down size and power toward the goal of invisible computing. Achieving this goal will require composing optimized and specialized - yet reusable - components with an interconnect that permits tiny, ultra-low power systems. In contrast to today's interconnects which are limited by power-hungry pull-ups or high-overhead chip-select lines, our approach provides a superset of common bus features but at lower power, with fixed area and pin count, using fully synthesizable logic, and with surprisingly low protocol overhead. We present MBus, a new 4-pin, 22.6 pJ/bit/chip chip-to-chip interconnect made of two "shoot-through" rings. MBus facilitates ultra-low power system operation by implementing automatic power-gating of each chip in the system, easing the integration of active, inactive, and activating circuits. In addition, we introduce a new bus primitive: power oblivious communication, which guarantees message reception regardless of the recipient's power state when a message is sent. This disentangles power management from communication, greatly simplifying the creation of viable, modular, and heterogeneous systems that operate on the order of nanowatts.

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Citation formats  
  • HTML
    Pat Pannuto, Yoonmyung Lee, Ye-Sheng Kuo, zhiyoong foo,
    Benjamin Kempke, Gyouho Kim, Ronald G. Dreslinski, David
    Blaauw, Prabal Dutta. <a
    href="http://www.terraswarm.org/pubs/749.html"
    >MBus: A System Integration Bus for the Modular
    Micro-Scale Computing Class</a>, <i>submitted to
    Special Issue of IEEE Micro: Micro's Top Picks from Computer
    Architecture Conferences</i>, May 2016.
  • Plain text
    Pat Pannuto, Yoonmyung Lee, Ye-Sheng Kuo, zhiyoong foo,
    Benjamin Kempke, Gyouho Kim, Ronald G. Dreslinski, David
    Blaauw, Prabal Dutta. "MBus: A System Integration Bus
    for the Modular Micro-Scale Computing Class".
    <i>submitted to Special Issue of IEEE Micro: Micro's
    Top Picks from Computer Architecture Conferences</i>,
    May 2016.
  • BibTeX
    @article{PannutoLeeKuofooKempkeKimDreslinskiBlaauwDutta16_MBusSystemIntegrationBusForModularMicroScaleComputing,
        author = {Pat Pannuto and Yoonmyung Lee and Ye-Sheng Kuo and
                  zhiyoong foo and Benjamin Kempke and Gyouho Kim
                  and Ronald G. Dreslinski and David Blaauw and
                  Prabal Dutta},
        title = {MBus: A System Integration Bus for the Modular
                  Micro-Scale Computing Class},
        journal = {submitted to Special Issue of IEEE Micro: Micro's
                  Top Picks from Computer Architecture Conferences},
        month = {May},
        year = {2016},
        abstract = {I/O has become the limiting factor in scaling down
                  size and power toward the goal of invisible
                  computing. Achieving this goal will require
                  composing optimized and specialized - yet reusable
                  - components with an interconnect that permits
                  tiny, ultra-low power systems. In contrast to
                  today's interconnects which are limited by
                  power-hungry pull-ups or high-overhead chip-select
                  lines, our approach provides a superset of common
                  bus features but at lower power, with fixed area
                  and pin count, using fully synthesizable logic,
                  and with surprisingly low protocol overhead. We
                  present MBus, a new 4-pin, 22.6 pJ/bit/chip
                  chip-to-chip interconnect made of two
                  "shoot-through" rings. MBus facilitates ultra-low
                  power system operation by implementing automatic
                  power-gating of each chip in the system, easing
                  the integration of active, inactive, and
                  activating circuits. In addition, we introduce a
                  new bus primitive: power oblivious communication,
                  which guarantees message reception regardless of
                  the recipient's power state when a message is
                  sent. This disentangles power management from
                  communication, greatly simplifying the creation of
                  viable, modular, and heterogeneous systems that
                  operate on the order of nanowatts.},
        URL = {http://terraswarm.org/pubs/749.html}
    }
    

Posted by Elizabeth Coyne on 1 Mar 2016.

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