Special issue on emerging on-chip networks and architectures [Editorial]

By entering into the ultra deep sub-micron era, the role played by the on-chip communication system is getting more and more critical. On-chip communication system represents one of the most important elements that determines the overall performance, cost, reliability, and energy consumption of a modern multi-processor system-on-chip (MPSoC). If the raw computation horsepower seems to be unlimited thanks to the ability of instancing more and more cores in a single silicon die, scalability issues, due to the need of making efficient and reliable the communication between the increasing number of cores, becomes the real problem. The Network-on-Chip (NoC) paradigm is now considered as the most viable solution for designing on-chip communication systems able to tackle with the above issues. This Special Issue aims to provide a forum for researchers to present innovative ideas and solutions related to design and implementation of networks-on-chip. Particularly, this Special Issue focuses on issues related to design, analysis and new communication approach of on-chip and on-system networks. In what follows, we will give a brief overview of the accepted papers of this Special Issue based on their topics.