Configurations and Optimizations of TDMA Schedules for Periodic Packet Communication on Networks on Chip

Abstract

In recent years, embedded system design has changed due to an increased demand for computing power and a rising complexity of control tasks. In this paper, we present an approach to create a contention-free communication schedule for a Network on Chip (NoC) using a global Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) schedule. TDMA can provide an isolation property among interfering tasks and a bandwidth guarantee for different communication paths. The approach allows the derivation of a predictable timing behavior for the communication. The communication schedule is designed using two scheduling strategies: a first-fit greedy strategy and a solver-based approach called rectangular allocation. In the experiments, the approaches are evaluated with synthetic communication task sets on a 2D-meshed NoC-topology.