Software Defined Networks-on-Chip for multi/many-core systems: A performance evaluation

By means of a management framework and programmable routing tables, Software Defined Network (SDN) architectures offer network's adaptability to today's computer systems. In Networks-on-Chip (NoC) based systems, management methods have been implemented as specific solutions unable to be reused in further designs. A Software Defined NoC (SDNoC) architecture will permit on-the-fly re/configuration and reduce Non-Recurring Engineering costs. In this paper, performance evaluations of a SDNoC through flit-accurate SystemC models are presented. We measure the average values of the configuration time (CT), global delay and throughput for various routing algorithms and packet injection rates.