On-Chip Communication Architectures

466 CHAPTER 12 Networks-On-Chip

(iii) Lack of tools and benchmarks: The NoC design space is enormous, with

numerous topologies and protocol/parameter choices for switching strat-

egies, fl ow and congestion control schemes, buffer sizing, packet sizing,

link sizing, etc. Design space exploration and implementation tools and

fl ows are needed that can be integrated with standard tool fl ows used

today to enable more widespread use of the NoC technology. There is

also a need for open benchmarks [66] to compare the performance, cost,

reliability, and other features of different NoC architecture alternatives, to

select the one most suited for ...