title: Designing area optimized application-specific network-on-chip architectures while providing hard QoS guarantees.
abstract: With the increase of transistors' density, popularity of System on Chip (SoC) has increased exponentially. As a communication module for SoC, Network on Chip (NoC) framework has been adapted as its backbone. In this paper, we propose a methodology for designing area-optimized application specific NoC while providing hard Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for real time flows. The novelty of the proposed system lies in derivation of a Mixed Integer Linear Programming model which is then used to generate a resource optimal Network on Chip (NoC) topology and architecture while considering traffic and QoS requirements. We also present the micro-architectural design features used for enabling traffic and latency guarantees and discuss how the solution adapts for dynamic variations in the application traffic. The paper highlights the effectiveness of proposed method by generating resource efficient NoC solutions for both industrial and benchmark applications. The area-optimized results are generated in few seconds by proposed technique, without resorting to heuristics, even for an application with 48 traffic flows.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Sajid Gul
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Khawaja
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Mian Hamza
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Mushtaq
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Shoab A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: M Usman
authors.initials: MU
authors.lastname: Akram
authors.affiliation: Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, Topi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Habib Ullah
authors.initials: HU
authors.lastname: Jamal
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D019212:Multimedia; D011382:Programming, Linear; D011786:Quality Control; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D059015:Wireless Technology