Irregular NoC simulation framework: IrNIRGAM

IrNIRGAM is a discrete event cycle accurate simulator written in SystemC and C++ for Network-on-Chip performance simulation. IrNIRGAM supports regular as well as irregular topology framework with source and table based routing. In general, the topology represents the most important characteristic of NoC architectures. It defines how router nodes are physically interconnected and has a predominant influence on network performance and implementation costs. The direct network architecture where each IP Core is directly connected to a dedicated router is assumed for IrNIRGAM. In IrNIRGAM, input buffered routers can have multiple virtual channels (VCs) and uses wormhole switching for flow control. The packets are split into an arbitrary number of flits (flow control units) and forwarded through the network in a pipelined fashion. A Round-Robin scheme for switch arbitration is used in the router nodes to provide fair bandwidth allocation while effectively preventing scheduling anomalies like starvation.