A Communication and configuration controller for NoC based reconfigurable data flow architecture

While network-on-chip aspects such as topologies, routing strategies or quality-of-service have been largely studied, the mapping of real applications on distributed NoC-based architecture is still an open issue. In this paper, we address this issue for complex reconfigurable data-flow applications. We introduce the concept of communication and configuration controller (CCC) which interacts both with the usual network interface and the IP core structure. The proposed CCC is a programmable template-based architecture, which provides solutions to manage reconfiguration flows, data synchronizations and global control signaling. An implementation of the CCC is presented, and its performances in a 65 nm technology are discussed through a concrete telecommunication application.