Study on Network-on-Chip Saturation

Abstract

In Network-on-Chip (NoC), although the term “saturation†is always used while discussing about performance and power figures exhibited by a NoC, there is not, however, an unanimous definition of the saturation status. There are at least six representative usages about saturation, which shows that there is lack of systematical study on saturation in the literature. In this paper, we carry out detailed study on saturation. The current usages about saturation are analyzed. The simulation results show that NoC saturation status is quite complex. Consequently, saturation should not be used without careful consideration.