Analysis and optimization of prediction-based flow control in networks-on-chip

While networks-on-Chip (NoC) architectures may offer higher bandwidth compared to traditional bus-based communication, their performance can degrade significantly in the absence of effective flow control algorithms. This chapter presents a predictive closed-loop flow control mechanism, which is used to predict the congestion level in the network. Based on this information, the proposed scheme controls the packet injection rate at traffic sources in order to regulate the total number of packets in the network. Finally, simulations and experimental study using our FPGA prototype show that the proposed controller delivers a better performance compared to the traditional switch-to-switch flow control algorithms under various real and synthetic traffic patterns.