Coupling TDM NoC and DRAM controller for cost and performance optimization of real-time systems

Abstract

Abstract-Existing memory subsystems and TDM NoCs for real-time systems are optimized independently in terms of cost and performance by configuring their arbiters according to the bandwidth and/or latency requirements of their clients. However, when they are used in conjunction, and run in different clock domains, i.e. they are decoupled, there exists no structured methodology to select the NoC interface width and operating frequency for minimizing area and/or power consumption. Moreover, the multiple arbitration points, one in the NoC and the other in the memory subsystem, introduce additional overhead in the worst-case guaranteed latency. These makes it hard to design cost-efficient real-time systems.