Recent progress in integrated circuit technologies requires precise evaluation between dynamic characteristics and topological architecture design. In this paper, we have investigated the performance evaluation of network-on-chip (NoC) architectures constructed with diverse scale-free network topologies by dynamic packet traffic simulation and theoretical network analysis. Topological differences of scale-free networks are evaluated by the degree-degree correlations that indicate topological tendency between the degree of a node and that of the nearest neighbors. Our simulation results quantitatively show that the NoC architecture constructed with the topology where hubs mostly connect to lower-degree nodes is found to achieve short latency and low packet loss ratio since it can disperse traffic load and avoid the extreme concentration of load on hubs.
Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, and Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan.