PNoC: a flexible circuit-switched NoC for FPGA-based systems

Increases in chip density due to Moore's law allow for the implementation of ever larger and more complex systems on a single chip (SoCs). The communication mechanisms employed in such SoCs are an important contribution to their overall performance. Networks on chip (NoCs) promise to overcome the scalability problems found in bus-based interconnect. To date, most work has focused on packet-switched NoCs. Circuit-switched networks are an intriguing alternative, which promise high communication rates and predictable communication latencies. A new lightweight circuit-switched architecture called programmable NoC (PNoC) is described. PNoC is a flexible architecture that is suitable for use in FPGA-based systems. Implementation results on a Virtex-II Pro device are given using an image binarisation demonstration which resulted in as much as a 23× speedup compared with a shared bus implementation.