On the Capacity of Bufferless Networks-on-Chip

Abstract—Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) form an emerging paradigm for communications within chips. In particular, bufferless NoCs require significantly less area and power consumption, but also pose novel major scheduling problems to achieve full capacity. In this paper, we provide first insights on the capacity of bufferless NoCs. In particular, we present optimal periodic schedules for several bufferless NoCs with a completeexchange traffic pattern. These schedules particularly fit distributed-programming models and network congestioncontrol mechanisms. Finally, we analytically evaluate the performance of our scheduling algorithms. A. Background I