Multi-channel Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Networks within Computing Packages

TL;DR

This paper explores multi-channel MAC protocols for wireless chip-scale networks, evaluating different channel assignment strategies to optimize bandwidth sharing while maintaining protocol advantages.

Contribution

It introduces and evaluates distinct multi-channel MAC protocols with various channel assignment strategies for chip-scale wireless networks.

Findings

Multi-channel protocols improve bandwidth sharing.

Both protocols retain their inherent advantages and disadvantages.

Realistic traffic patterns influence protocol performance.

Abstract

Wireless communications at the chip scale emerge as a interesting complement to traditional wire-based approaches thanks to their low latency, inherent broadcast nature, and capacity to bypass pin constraints. However, as current trends push towards massive and bandwidth-hungry processor architectures, there is a need for wireless chip-scale networks that exploit and share as many channels as possible. In this context, this work addresses the issue of channel sharing by exploring the design space of multi-channel Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for chip-scale networks. Distinct channel assignment strategies for both random access and token passing are presented and evaluated under realistic traffic patterns. It is shown that, even with the improvements enabled by the multiple channels, both protocols maintain their intrinsic advantages and disadvantages.