The Environment for Mapping SystemC Multi-module Specifications onto NoC Architectures

ABSTRACT

This work presents a methodology for mapping of a SystemC specification onto a given Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture, for the purpose of FPGA prototyping. A communication protocol and routing tables are generated automatically using inter-module communication analysis. For each processor in the target architecture, assigned SystemC processes are converted into C++ programs, where all communication method calls are replaced with sending/receiving messages to/from the network interface (NI) process. For each module implemented in hardware a VHDL code of the NI is generated. NIs convert transmitted data into/from network packets according to the communication protocol. The main advantage of our approach is the possibility to prototype and to evaluate many NoC architectures for a given system, without the necessity of modification of the source system specification. Presented embedded HTTP server example substantiates the benefits of the methodology.

Keywords: