Traffic generation and performance evaluation for mesh-based NoCs

The designer of a system on a chip (SoC) that connects IP cores through a network on chip (NoC) needs methods to support application performance evaluation. Two key aspects these methods have to address are the generation and evaluation of network traffic. Traffic generation allows injecting packets in the network according to application constraint specifications such as transmission rate and end-to-end latency. Performance evaluation helps in computing latency and throughput at network channels/interfaces, as well as to identify congestion and hotspots. This paper reviews related works in traffic generation and performance evaluation for mesh topology NoCs, and proposes general methods for both aspects. Three parameters are used here to define traffic generation: packet spatial distribution, packet injection rate and packet size. Two types of methods to evaluate performance in NoCs are discussed: (i) external evaluation, a common strategy found in related works, where the network is...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: SBCCI
• Authors: Leonel Tedesco, Aline Mello, Diego Garibotti, Ney Calazans, Fernando Moraes
• Keywords: Application Performance Evaluation, Performance Evaluation, SBCCI 2005, Traffic Generation