DCFNoC: A Delayed Conflict-Free Time Division Multiplexing Network on Chip

The adoption of many-cores in safety-critical systems requires real-time capable networks on chip (NoC). In this paper we propose a new time-predictable NoC design paradigm where contention within the network is eliminated. This new paradigm builds on the Channel Dependency Graph (CDG) and guarantees by design the absence of contention. Our delayed conflict-free NoC (DCFNoC) is able to naturally inject messages using a TDM period equal to the optimal theoretical bound and without the need of using a computationally demanding offline process. Results show that DCFNoC guarantees time predictability with very low implementation cost.