MPSoC Communication Architecture Exploration Using an Abstraction Refinement Method

The complexity of today´s Multi-Processors System-on-Chip (MPSoC) requires new design methodologies to solve time-to-market and design cost problems. In SoC for which several subsystems are connected together, we notice that lots of design time is wasted on solving the inter-subsystem (global) communication problem. In this paper, we propose a novel communication exploration method based on a multi-abstraction levels exploration. With this work, the inter-subsystem communication structure can be optimized at the beginning of the design process by using simulation models at three different abstraction levels. The simulation at the higher abstraction level allows designers to explore parameters of the interconnection model at the more detailed abstraction level. Some design loop cases can be avoided by using this exploration method. With the Motion-JPEG case study, we illustrate the whole communication exploration process step by step. From experimental results, we show that compared with the cycle accurate simulation, the inter-subsystem communication can be well optimized and evaluated at higher abstraction levels.