Design And Implementation Of A Run-time Resource Manager For Malleable Applications On Network-on-chip (noc) Architecture

Abstract

The purpose of this diploma thesis is the design and implementation of a run-time resource manager, for a special kind of parallel applications called the malleable ones, for a Multi-Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) that utilizes the Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture. A framework is presented that creates an initial mapping for these applications and then manages them throughout their entire life cycle providing ways for them to maximize their speedup. The goal of the resource management algorithm is to maximize resource utilization, avoiding dominating effects and taking into account the type of processors supporting platform heterogeneity. All these are achieved having a small overhead in overall inter-core communication. This work was presented in DAC 2013. (www.dac.com/dac+2013.aspx)In chapter 1, an introduction is made, covering the basic characteristics of a Network-on-Chip. The concept of application mapping is presented and basic definitions about the NoC platform and the application model used.In chapter 2, six published works are presented which either involve topics on state-of-the-art run-time mapping algorithms or they give an insight on parallel applications. We investigate the outline of these works giving emphasis on their novel contribution.In chapter 3, the run-time resource management framework that was developed as part of this thesis is described. We highlight its major components and explain how the algorithm for allocating the resources functions. Additionally, we analyze the interplay and intercommunication of the components of the framework.In chapter 4, we analyze the design choices that had to be made in order for our framework to be constructed. Then, we explain how these design choices were modeled into components of simulator of NoC platforms and ultimately as a run-time service for an actual NoC platform.In chapter 5, we present, evaluate and analyze the results of the experiments we conducted comparing our proposed resource management framework to another state-of-the-art resource management framework, both for malleable applications.Finally in chapter 6, we summarize the conclusions of the diploma thesis and introduce ways and ideas for further development of the work we presented.