A Modular Approach to Model Heterogeneous MPSoC at Cycle Level

Abstract

This paper proposes a system-level cycle-based framework to model and design heterogeneous multiprocessor systems-on-chip (MPSoC), called GRAPES. The approach features flexibility and modularity maintaining high simulation speed despite modeling at cycle level. Intellectual property (IP) system modules can be described as C++or System C entities and they are wrapped into C++ objects, called plug-ins. Plug-ins, that are modeled by the transaction level modeling (TLM) style, are managed by the GRAPES kernel, which is the core of the simulation framework. GRAPES structural approach permits to easily model run-time reconfiguration and power modeling. Furthermore, GRAPES has been used to model and to simulate a case study: a scalable and heterogeneous MPSoC based on network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect.

Publication
Digital System Design Architectures, Methods and Tools, 2008. DSD ‘08. 11th EUROMICRO Conference on
Gianluca Palermo
Gianluca Palermo
Full Professor

Gianluca Palermo received the M.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering in 2002, and the Ph.D degree in Computer Engineering in 2006 from Politecnico di Milano. He is currently an associate professor at Department of Electronics and Information Technology in the same University. Previously he was also consultant engineer in the Low Power Design Group of AST – STMicroelectronics working on network on-chip and research assistant at the Advanced Learning and Research Institute (ALaRI) of the Università della Svizzera italiana (Switzerland). His research interests include design methodologies and architectures for embedded and HPC systems, focusing on AutoTuning aspects.