Network-on-Chip Modeling for System-Level Multiprocessor Simulation

  • Authors:
  • Jan Madsen;Shankar Mahadevan;Kashif Virk;Mercury Gonzalez

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • RTSS '03 Proceedings of the 24th IEEE International Real-Time Systems Symposium
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

With the increasing number of transistors available ona single chip, the System-on-Chip (SoC) paradigm hasevolved to exploit its full potential. As many processorscan be accommodated on a single chip, this paradigmhas forced a communication-centric, as opposed to acomputation-centric, design view. Thus, the choice, managementand modeling of the SoC interconnect is essentialfor an accurate evaluation and optimization of the globalperformance of a system. Recently, the notion of Network-on-Chip (NoC) has been introduced as a way to extend theclassical bus-based interconnection, which is still the dominantinterconnect structure for SoC's, into a dedicated, segmentedand, possibly, packet-switched network fabric [2].In this paper, we present a NoC model which, together witha multiprocessor real-time operating system (RTOS) model,allows us to model and analyze the behavior of a complexsystem that has a real-time application running on amultiprocessor platform. We demonstrate the potential ofour model by simulating and analyzing a small multiprocessorsystem connected through different NoC topologies,and discus how the simulation model may be used duringthe design-space exploration phase.