Fast communication architecture exploration of processor pool-based MPSoC via static performance analysis

Multiprocessor systems-on-chip (MPSoCs) are evolving toward processor pool-based architecture that employs a hierarchical on-chip network for inter-processor and intra-processor pool communication. This letter presents a systematic exploration method of the cascaded bus matrix-based on-chip network design for processor pool-based MPSoCs. It uses an evolutionary algorithm to find optimal architectures in terms of on-chip area while satisfying a given performance constraint. Since simulation is too time-consuming to evaluate the performance of complex on-chip networks during architecture exploration, we propose to prune the design space efficiently using two novel static analysis techniques: 1) bandwidth analysis considering task execution dependences, and 2) memory contention analysis for accurate performance estimation. Thanks to fast and accurate evaluation by the proposed analysis techniques, we achieved an order of magnitude speed improvement for the architecture exploration without performance loss, compared with a simulation-based approach.