RedScarf: an open-source multi-platform simulation environment for performance evaluation of Networks-on-Chip

The design space of Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) comprises a large number of architectural parameters. To comply with the performance requirements of target applications, NoC-based system designers need to employ tools to assess the impact of each parameter on the NoC and the performance of the applicati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of systems architecture 2019-10, Vol.99, p.101633, Article 101633
Main Authors: da Silva, Eduardo A., Kreutz, Márcio E., Zeferino, Cesar A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Multi- and many-core systems
Network-on-Chip
Performance evaluation
Simulation
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Summary:The design space of Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) comprises a large number of architectural parameters. To comply with the performance requirements of target applications, NoC-based system designers need to employ tools to assess the impact of each parameter on the NoC and the performance of the application. In view of this, this paper presents a simulation environment named RedScarf, which was developed to facilitate the design space exploration of NoCs. RedScarf integrates a graphical user interface and a set of tools that automate the process of configuring and evaluating the network characteristics. By providing resources like multi-platform and multi-thread execution, among others, RedScarf is a powerful tool for Research and Education on NoCs. This work describes the RedScarf architecture and tools, and demonstrates by means of experiments how it can aid a designer in the task of assessing the performance of on-chip interconnect architectures.
ISSN:1383-7621
1873-6165
DOI:10.1016/j.sysarc.2019.101633