Abstract: Systems and methods described herein are directed to solutions for Network on Chip (NoC) interconnects that automatically and dynamically determines the position of hosts of various size and shape in a NoC topology based on the connectivity, bandwidth and latency requirements of the system traffic flows and certain performance optimization metrics such as system interconnect latency and interconnect cost. The example embodiments selects hosts for relocation consideration and determines a new possible position for them in the NoC based on the system traffic specification, shape and size of the hosts and by using probabilistic function to decide if the relocation is carried out or not. The procedure is repeated over new sets of hosts until certain optimization targets are satisfied or repetition count is exceeded.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and non-transitory computer readable medium for automatically characterizing performance of a System-on-Chip (SoC) and/or Network-on-Chip (NoC) with respect to latency and throughput attributes of one or more traffic flows/profiles under varying traffic load conditions. The characterization of performance may involve a plot representative of latency and throughput, depending on the desired implementation.

Abstract: Different example implementations of the present disclosure relates to methods and computer readable mediums for automatically generating physically aware NoC design and physically aware NoC Specification based on one or more of given SoC architectural details, physical information of SoC, traffic specification, power profile and one or more constraints. The method includes steps of receiving input information, determining the location/position of different NoC agents, interconnecting channels, pins, I/O interfaces, physical/virtual boundaries, number of layers, size/depth/width of different channels at different time, and locating/configuring the different NoC agents, interconnecting channels, pins, I/O interfaces, and physical/virtual boundaries.

Abstract: In an aspect, the present disclosure provides a method that comprises automatic generation of a NoC from specified topological information based on projecting NoC elements of the NoC onto a grid layout. In an aspect, the specified topological information, including specification of putting constraints on positions/locations of NoC elements and links thereof, can be input by a user in real space, and can then be projected on the grid layout.

Abstract: The present disclosure is directed to Quality of Service (QoS) and handshake protocols to facilitate endpoint bandwidth allocation among one or more agents in a Network on Chip (NoC) for an endpoint agent. The QoS policy and handshake protocols may involve the use of credits for buffer allocation which are sent to agents in the NoC to compel the acceptance of data and the allocation of an appropriate buffer. Messages sent to the agent may also have a priority associated with the message, wherein higher priority messages have automatic bandwidth allocation and lower priority messages are processed using a handshake protocol.

Abstract: An aspect of the present disclosure provides a hardware element in a Network on Chip (NoC), wherein the hardware element includes a clock gating circuit configures one or more neighboring hardware elements to activate before receiving new incoming data and to sleep after a defined number of cycles, wherein the defined number of cycles can be counted from a cycle having non-receipt of incoming data and/or having a clearance of all data within an input queue of a source hardware element.

Abstract: In an aspect, the present disclosure provides a method that comprises automatic generation of a NoC from specified topological information based on projecting NoC elements of the NoC onto a grid layout. In an aspect, the specified topological information, including specification of putting constraints on positions/locations of NoC elements and links thereof, can be input by a user in real space, and can then be projected on the grid layout.

Abstract: Systems and methods of the present disclosure relate to automatically and/or dynamically generating one or more power management sequences for SoC and NoC architectures from a given input specification having one or a combination of NoC design specification, traffic specification, traffic profile, power profile information, initiator-consumer relationship, interdependency between components, retention information, external factors, among other allied configurations/information to enable efficient switching of one or more hardware elements from one power profile to another.

Abstract: Example implementations described herein are directed to a micro-architecture of NoC router clocking which allows for a flexible Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS) implementation. The example implementations allow arbitrary clock domain partitions to be defined across the system. The example implementations further involve allowing the components of the NoC to be configured by the user through a NoC generation system to achieve the desired arbitrary clock domain partitioning.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure relates to methods, computer readable mediums, and NoC architectures/systems/constructions that can automatically mark and configure some channel of a NoC as store-and-forward channels, and other channels of the NoC as cut-through channels, and can further resize the buffers/channels based on the given NoC specification and associated traffic profile. An aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for configuring a first set of plurality of channels of a NoC as store-and-forward channels, and configuring a second set of plurality of channels of the NoC as cut-through channels based on the determination of idle cycles in a given NoC specification and associated traffic profile.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to automatic sizing of NoC channel buffers of one or more virtual channels to optimize NoC design, SoC design, and to meet defined performance objectives. The present disclosure further relates to a NoC element such as a router or a bridge having input ports associated with input virtual channels, and output ports associated with output virtual channels, wherein, aspects of the present disclosure enable sizing of any or a combination of the width of the input virtual channel(s), width of the output virtual channel(s), buffer(s) associated with input virtual channels, and buffer(s) associated with output virtual channels. In another aspect, the sizing can be performed based on one or a combination of defined performance objectives, throughputs of the input virtual channels, and throughputs of the output virtual channels, load characteristics, bandwidth characteristics of each input/output channel, among other like parameters.

Abstract: Systems and methods for automatically building a deadlock free inter-communication network in a multi-core system are described. The example implementations described herein involve automatically generating internal dependency specification of a system component based on dependencies between incoming/input and outgoing/output interface channels of the component. Dependencies between incoming and outgoing interface channels of the component can be determined by blocking one or more outgoing interface channels and evaluating impact of the blocked outgoing channels on the incoming interface channels. Another implementation described herein involves determining inter-component communication dependencies by measuring impact of a deadlock on the blocked incoming interface channels of one or more components to identify whether a dependency cycle is formed by blocked incoming interface channels.

Abstract: A network-on-chip configuration includes a first plurality of cores arranged in a two-dimensional mesh; a first plurality of routers, each of the first plurality of routers associated with a corresponding local one of the first plurality of cores, each of the first plurality of routers having a plurality of directional ports configured to provide connections to other ones of the first plurality of routers; a second plurality of cores disposed around a periphery of the two-dimensional mesh arrangement; and a second plurality of routers, each of the second plurality of routers associated with a corresponding local one of the second plurality of cores, and having a directional port configured to provide a connection to a neighboring one of the first plurality of routers.

Abstract: The present disclosure is directed to Quality of Service (QoS) and handshake protocols to facilitate endpoint bandwidth allocation among one or more agents in a Network on Chip (NoC) for an endpoint agent. The QoS policy and handshake protocols may involve the use of credits for buffer allocation which are sent to agents in the NoC to compel the acceptance of data and the allocation of an appropriate buffer. Messages sent to the agent may also have a priority associated with the message, wherein higher priority messages have automatic bandwidth allocation and lower priority messages are processed using a handshake protocol.

Abstract: The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for connecting hosts to any router by the use of bridges. Example implementations described herein are directed to determining connections between routers and hosts based on the topology of the NoC and cost functions. Unused routers may also be removed from the NoC configuration and unused directional host ports of routers may be utilized to connect hosts together depending on a cost function and the desired implementation.

Abstract: Example implementations described herein are directed to a configurable building block, such as a router, for implementation of a Network on Chip (NoC). The router is parameterized by a software layer, which can include the number of virtual channels for a port, the number of ports, the membership information of the virtual channels, clock domain, and so forth. The router may further be configured to implement arbitration techniques and flit processing techniques based on the parameters specified by the software layer.

Abstract: Systems and methods described herein are directed to streaming bridge design implementations that help interconnect and transfer transaction packets between multiple source and destination host interfaces through a Network on Chip (NoC) interconnect, which includes a plurality of NoC router layers and virtual channels (VCs) connecting the router layers. Implementations are configured to support a variety of different traffic profiles, each having a different set of traffic flows. Streaming bridge design implementation can divide streaming bridge into a streaming TX bridge and a streaming RX bridge, wherein TX bridge is operatively coupled with host TX interfaces and RX bridge is operatively coupled with host RX interfaces, and where TX bridge forwards transaction packets from host TX interfaces to different router layers/VCs of NoC, and RX bridge, on the other hand, receives packets from NoC router layers/VCs and transmits the packets to host RX interfaces based on Quality of Service.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to automatic sizing of NoC channel buffers of one or more virtual channels to optimize NoC design, SoC design, and to meet defined performance objectives. The present disclosure further relates to a NoC element such as a router or a bridge having input ports associated with input virtual channels, and output ports associated with output virtual channels, wherein, aspects of the present disclosure enable sizing of any or a combination of the width of the input virtual channel(s), width of the output virtual channel(s), buffer(s) associated with input virtual channels, and buffer(s) associated with output virtual channels. In another aspect, the sizing can be performed based on one or a combination of defined performance objectives, throughputs of the input virtual channels, and throughputs of the output virtual channels, load characteristics, bandwidth characteristics of each input/output channel, among other like parameters.

Abstract: Example implementations are directed to more efficiently delivering a multicast message to multiple destination components from a source component. Multicast environment is achieved with transmission of a single message from a source component, which gets replicated in the NoC during routing towards the destination components indicated in the message. Example implementations further relate to an efficient way of implementing multicast in any given NoC topology, wherein one or more multicast trees in the given NoC topology are formed and one of these trees are used for routing a multicast message to its intended destination components mentioned therein.

Abstract: Systems and methods involving construction of a system interconnect in which different channels have different widths in numbers of bits. Example processes to construct such a heterogeneous channel NoC interconnect are disclosed herein, wherein the channel width may be determined based upon the provided specification of bandwidth and latency between various components of the system.