Algorithm architecture trade offs in network processor design

The increasing use of computer networks for all kinds of information exchange between autonomous computing resources is associated with a number of sideeffects. In the Internet, where computers all over the globe are interconnected, the traffic volume grows faster than the infrastructure improves, leading to congestion of networking routes. In the application domain of embedded systems, networks can be used to couple complex sensor systems with a computing core. The provision of raw bandwidth may not be sufficient in such systems to allow control with real-time constraints. The underlying requirement in both cases is a network service with a defined quality, for instance, in terms of traffic loss ratio and worst-case communication delay. The provision of suitable communication services however requires a noticeable overhead in terms of computing load. Therefore, application-specific hardware accelerators – so-called network processors – have been introduced to speed up or even enable the maintenance of certain network services. The following issues have not yet been dealt with: • Although there are network processors for high-speed networks, no processor is available that considers the requirements of the interface between networks of a service provider and a customer. • While each individual task of a network processor is well understood, it is unclear how different tasks, that potentially show interfering properties, should cooperate to preserve the service quality. The above issues are addressed in this thesis and the major contributions in the research area of algorithms and architectures for network processors are: • A service scheme is defined which takes care of the requirements at the interface between networks of a service provider and a customer. • Various combinations of network processing tasks are explored for this service scheme by exhaustive simulation. The exploration focuses on the preservation of service quality parameters.