A clustering-based scheme for concurrent trace in debugging NoC-based multicore systems

Abstract

Concurrent trace is an emerging challenge when debugging multicore systems. In concurrent trace, trace buffer becomes a bottleneck since all trace sources try to access it simultaneously. In addition, the on-chip interconnection fabric is extremely high hardware cost for the distributed trace signals. In this paper, we propose a clustering-based scheme which implements concurrent trace for debugging Network-on-Chip (NoC) based multicore systems. In the proposed scheme, a unified communication framework eliminates the requirement for interconnection fabric which is only used during debugging. With clustering scheme, multiple concurrent trace sources can access distributed trace buffer via NoC under bandwidth constraint. We evaluate the proposed scheme using Booksim and the results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.