Distributed Sequencing for Resource Sharing in Multi-applicative Heterogeneous NoC Platforms

In the context of heterogeneous NoC architectures for embedded systems, it is today mandatory to support multiple applications given the plurality of standards and usages. While static reconfiguration between applications has already been extensively studied, we propose a potential increase in hardware resource usage by enabling concurrent or overlapping applications on the top of a heterogeneous NoC platform. In this paper, we describe a distributed sequencing protocol allowing hardware resource sharing between several applications. This protocol ensures correct synchronization of the processing between hardware resources without the need of a global fine-grain scheduler on the system, thus alleviating the pressure on the run-time system. The proposed protocol has been integrated and validated in a NoC-based digital baseband for 4G SDR telecom applications, and was integrated on a manufactured chip on a STMicroelectronics CMOS 65 nm LP technology.