Arteris Connected Blog

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Today in the IP and EDA business, I hear “knock” all the time, except people mean “NoC.” It seems everybody wants a NoC, or wants to offer you a NoC. I’m here to tell you that NoC is not a noun.

A network-on-chip is a technology approach that can be used to transfer data and commands in many domains. When people in the IP and EDA businesses say NoC, they are usually referring to the means to control a SoC interconnect fabric, either within a chip, between chips, or both. In short, it is an adjective that describes a type of SoC interconnect solution.

Today the processor in your Blackberry or iPhone has more calculating power than a PC did only a decade ago. No surprise here. But how did this happen? What enabled this?

The pat answer of course is “Moore’s law enabled semiconductor designers to cram more transistors into a given area each year, allowing more functions to be added to a chip.”