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NoC design and optimization for Multi-core media processors

NoC design and optimization for Multi-core media processors

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CHAPTER 3. LINK MICROARCHITECTURE EXPLORATION 33Intacte [82] provides a similar capability to explore link level <strong>design</strong> options <strong>and</strong> is usedin this research.It is clear from a<strong>for</strong>ementioned works that there is a need <strong>for</strong> a co-<strong>design</strong> of interconnects,processing elements <strong>and</strong> memory blocks to fully optimize the overall system-on-chipper<strong>for</strong>mance. This necessitates a simulation framework which allows a co-simulation ofthe communicating entities along with ICN simulation. Additionally, to optimize powerfully, one also needs to incorporate the link-level microarchitectural choices of pipeliningetc. A System-C framework which enables <strong>NoC</strong> <strong>design</strong>ers to assemble communicatingentities along with the ICN <strong>and</strong> also allows <strong>for</strong> exploration of architectural <strong>and</strong> microarchitecturalparameters of the ICN in order to obtain the latency, throughput <strong>and</strong> powertrade-offs has been developed <strong>and</strong> is presented in Section 3.2.Further, previous works largely concentrate on router power <strong>and</strong> do not take intoaccount various link microarchitectural parameters <strong>for</strong> power <strong>and</strong> per<strong>for</strong>mance trade-offcalculations. This chapter presents results <strong>for</strong> <strong>NoC</strong> power by considering effects of variouspipelining configurations, frequency <strong>and</strong> voltage scaling values. Various traffic generation<strong>and</strong> distribution models have been used to mimic realistic traffic patterns <strong>and</strong> activity in<strong>NoC</strong>s. Trade-off studies in this chapter consider Energy-Delay product of the <strong>NoC</strong> as the<strong>optimization</strong> parameter.3.2 <strong>NoC</strong> Microarchitectural Exploration FrameworkThe <strong>NoC</strong> exploration framework (Figure 3.1) has been built upon Open Core Protocol-IPmodels[125] using OSCI SystemC 2.0.1[126] on Linux (2.6.8-24.25-default). The frameworkcontains Router, Link <strong>and</strong> Processing Element (PE) modules <strong>and</strong> each can be customizedviavariousparameters.The<strong>NoC</strong>modulescanbeinterconnectedto<strong>for</strong>madesired<strong>NoC</strong>. The PE module represents any communicating entity on the SoC <strong>and</strong> not just theprocessing element. We can connect an actual executable model of the entity or someabstract model representing its communication characteristics. For abstract models, wesupport many different traffic generation <strong>and</strong> communication patterns. The link modulecan be used to customize the bit-width of the links as well as the degree of pipelining

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