NC-G-SIM: A Parameterized Generic Simulator for 2D-Mesh, 3D-Mesh

Abstract

As chip density keeps doubling during each course of generation, the use of NoC has become an integral part of modern microprocessors and a very prevalent architectural feature of all types of SoCs. To meet the ever expanding communication challenges, diverse and novel NoC solutions are being developed which rely on accurate modeling and simulations to evaluate the impact and analyze their performances. Consequently, this aggravates the need to rely on simulation tools to probe and optimize these NoC architectures. In this work, we present NC-G-SIM (Network on Chip-Generic-SIMulator), a highly flexible, modular, cycle-accurate, configurable simulator for NoCs. To make NC-G-SIM suitable for advanced NoC exploration, it is made highly generic that supports extensive range of cores in any kind of topology whether 2D, 3D or irregular. Simulation results have been evaluated in terms of latencies, throughput and the amount of energy consumed during the simulation period at different levels