Worst-case performance analysis of 2-D mesh NoCs using multi-path minimal routing

In Network-on-Chip (NoC), multi-path routing is often preferable than single-path routing since it can better balance workload and thus provide better performance. However, performance analysis with multi-path routing is much more difficult due to complicated contention scenarios. Based on network calculus, we study worst-case performance of deterministic multi-path minimal routing on 2-D mesh NoCs. We first present a per-flow delay bound analysis technique for multi-path routing, which extends the analysis for single-path routing but deals with traffic splitting. Then we define a contention matrix to capture network congestion status. Based on the contention matrix, we propose an effective non-uniform traffic splitting strategy to improve worst-case performance. Experiments with synthetic traffic flows and an industrial case show that our analysis can effectively explore the traffic splitting space, and verify the effectiveness of the non-uniform splitting policy.