A Flexible Parallel Simulator for Networks-on-Chip With Error Control

This paper presents a flexible parallel simulator to evaluate the impact of different error control methods on the performance and energy consumption of networks-on-chip (NoCs). Various error control schemes can be inserted into the simulator in a plug-and-play manner for evaluation. Moreover, a highly tunable fault injection feature is developed for modeling various fault injection scenarios, including different fault injection rates, fault types, fault injection locations, and faulty flit types. Case studies performed in the proposed flexible simulation environment are presented to demonstrate the impact of a set of error control schemes on NoC performance and energy in different noise scenarios. This paper also uses the simulator to provide design guidelines for NoCs with error control capabilities.