Selective Abstraction for Estimating Extra-Functional Properties in Networks-on-Chips Using ArchOn Framework

The analysis for extra-functional properties like power and performance takes a critical role in the system design workflow. Hardware-software co-simulation is one of the commonly used ways to perform this type of analysis. However, with the modern development of many-core systems the problem of scalability is becoming a bottleneck for all analysis techniques including simulation, especially when a simple extrapolation from the single core results is unacceptable. This paper presents a framework aimed at the extra-functional analysis during the rapid prototyping stages of system design. The tool is based on stochastic modelling and simulation of cross-layer system representations. The concept of selective abstraction is applied to ensure a sufficient level of accuracy where it is needed, while reducing the complexity of the parts that are of less importance. A set of Networks-on-Chip topologies has been analysed and presented as a use case example.