Abstract
Network-on-Chip (NoC) research and development have increased noticeably over the past few years. As the NoC size increases, it was an urge to group processing elements (PEs) into clusters, based on common characteristics between these elements or the spatial locality in the floorplan. NoC clustering achieved better performance, scalability, and load balancing. On another hand, many NoC simulators, like NoCTweak, were developed to provide quick and easy tool for early evaluation of NoC-based designs. In this paper, we extend NoCTweak in order to allow it to simulate NoC clustering. The presented NoC clustering simulator supports the modular design technique, which in turn offers the flexibility in configuring cluster parameters. Examples of configurable parameters that are supported by our simulator are adding a cluster manager, adding latency factors of cluster links, and adapting the routing algorithm for both inter-cluster and intra-cluster traffic. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.