Time-Constrained Energy-Aware Routing and Scheduling of Network-on-Chip Communication

Network-on-chip-based multiprocessor systems-on-chip (NoC-based MP-SoCs) are considered as future embedded systems platforms. One of the steps in mapping an application onto such a parallel platform involves determining when data is sent between the tasks in the application. As a network-on-chip allows concurrent communication, a decision on the route through the network must also be made. Timing constraints and energy consumption are aspects that must be considered in this mapping. This paper presents different routing and scheduling strategies which try to minimize the resource usage and energy consumption when an application with timing constraints is mapped onto a NoC-based MP-SoC. Our experiments show that our strategies outperform an existing state-of-theart scheduling technique, and that in some cases random-based strategies perform the best.