RedScarf: an open-source multi-platform simulation environment for performance evaluation of Networks-on-Chip

The design space of Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) comprises a large number of architectural parameters. To comply with the performance requirements of target applications, NoC-based system designers need to employ tools to assess the impact of each parameter on the NoC and the performance of the application. In view of this, this paper presents a simulation environment named RedScarf, which was developed to facilitate the design space exploration of NoCs. RedScarf integrates a graphical user interface and a set of tools that automate the process of configuring and evaluating the network characteristics. By providing resources like multi-platform and multi-thread execution, among others, RedScarf is a powerful tool for Research and Education on NoCs. This work describes the RedScarf architecture and tools, and demonstrates by means of experiments how it can aid a designer in the task of assessing the performance of on-chip interconnect architectures.