Design and Implementation of a Network-on-Chip based Embedded System-on-Chip
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Embedded electronic system design (MPEES), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Strikos, Panagiotis
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
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Sammanfattning
Today, the demand for more computing power has led embedded computing systems
to become more complex than ever. As a result, a wide range of multi and many-core
System-on-Chip (SoC) architectures has been proposed. Traditionally, the bus has
been used as an interconnection mechanism in many embedded systems, including
the space domain. As the need for extensive processing rises though, and while multi
and many-core architectures become a necessity, the bus often fails to accommodate
the communication needs of such systems. By lacking the ability to scale well, buses
introduce a bottleneck in the communication needs of the system’s throughput. On
the other hand, Networks-on-Chip (NoC) have emerged to become a paradigm for
complex architectures, since they offer a scalable communication solution, serving
as a replacement to the traditional bus-based interconnections. This thesis studies
the upgrade of a bus-based embedded System-on-Chip by replacing its AMBA 2.0
AHB bus with an existing Network-on-Chip. To achieve that, a network interface
is designed, a unit responsible for communicating with both the AHB components
and the NoC, while leaving the original functionality of the systems intact. An
in-depth analysis of a network interface is performed, and at the same time, a
modified NoC-based version of the systems is presented featuring FastTrackNoC
routers. Our evaluation shows that compared to the baseline bus-based System on-Chip, the NoC-based one, improves communication latency from 44% and up to
97%, while resulting in a 1.68 × −37.5× higher throughput. At the same time, the
proposed system increases the area overhead by a factor of 7× −72×. Although the
system was only analyzed in simulation, it also has the potential to be implemented
in hardware, as RTL descriptions for both the NoC and the SoC have been developed.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
System-on-Chip , Network-on-Chip , Network Interface , AMBA , AHB , FastTrackNoC , On-Chip Interconnect