NetworkOnChip

Development of a Network on Chip Simulation using SystemC.

This is the final project of the course Silicon Systems Modelling at University of Brasília @ 01/2017.

Objectives

This project has as final objective the development of a NoC with the following characteristics:

Router Architecture

The NoC Router will have the following characteristics:

• Routing - Using XY-Algorithm.
• Switching Scheme - Wormhole Switching.
• Flow Control - Handshaking Signal based.
• Arbiter Scheme - Round-Robin Algorithm. *
• Using VC (Virtual Channel)

*As a development decision the arbiter scheme changed from FCFS (First Come First Serve).

The messages will be divide in packets with N-flits with 32-bits depth. The first flit will be used as header to allocate network resources to be used by the following data flits.

The Header flit will divided as:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| source ID (8 bits) | destination ID (8 bits) | packet size (16 bits) |

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The subsequently flits after the header will be responsible to only carry the data.

A packet size can range its size from 2 to 2^16 + 1.

Currently the message only has a single packet. #ISSUE-15

Network Interface Architecture

The NoC NI will have the following characteristics:

• Back-End - Responsible for encapsulate/desencapsulate the message in a group of packets to be send by the router.
• Front-End - Used as wrapper to make sure the different PE can communicate through the NoC.

Processor Elements

The NoC will be used in MpSoC with elements developed by other groups. The following PE are expected to be connected in our NoC:

• Risc-V Processor
• MIPS Processor
• Graphic Unit
• Shared Memory
• Criptographic Unit

Group Members

• Jessé Barreto
• Javier Sánchez
• João Carlos Passos
• Pedro
• Adalberto Gualeve (Group Supervisor)

Compilation Process

This project was developed and tested in GNU-Linux OS using SystemC=2.3, C++11 and CMake>=2.8. To compile this project follow these steps:

• Install Gnu Make: sudo apt-get install make
• Install CMake: sudo apt-get install cmake
• Install SystemC from: http://accellera.org/images/downloads/standards/systemc/systemc-2.3.1a.tar.gz
• Make sure there is a copy of SystemC library at /opt/systemc-2.3.1a
  • Or feel free to change the CMakeLists.txt and change systemc path in your system.
• Create a build folder: mkdir build && cd build
• Run CMake to configure a make file in the build folder: cmake ..
• Run Make to Compile the project: make
• Run the test executable bin: ./NoC

Bibliography

• SUDEEP PASRICHA & NIKIL DUTT, On-Chip Communication Architectures - System On Chip Interconnect, Morgan-Kauffmann, 2008, Chap. 12
• Agarwal, Ankur, Cyril Iskander, and Ravi Shankar. "Survey of network on chip (noc) architectures & contributions." Journal of engineering, Computing and Architecture 3.1 (2009): 21-27.
• Zeferino, Cesar Albenes, Márcio Eduardo Kreutz, and Altamiro Amadeu Susin. "RASoC: A router soft-core for networks-on-chip." Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, 2004. Proceedings. Vol. 3. IEEE, 2004.
• Dimitrakopoulos, Giorgos, Psarras, Anastasios, and Ioannis Seitanidis, Microarchitecture of Network-onChip Routers - A Designer's Perspective, Springer, 2015.