In recent years, the semiconductor industry has increasingly focused on solving the challenges associated with data movement within system-on-chips (SoCs). As highlighted by a detailed analysis on SemiEngineering, the traditional focus on compute power alone is not enough to address the demands of modern AI workloads.

With applications demanding high throughput and low latency, the older methods of buses and crossbars are being replaced by packet-based network-on-chip (NoC) architectures. These offer increased flexibility, reduced physical wire count, and improved performance. By supporting multiple interface protocols and enabling seamless integration of heterogeneous IP blocks, NoCs are pivotal in handling the complexity of chip design, especially as the industry shifts towards chiplet architectures.

The success of NoCs also depends heavily on understanding and overcoming layout constraints such as floorplanning and congestion to maintain high-speed communication across multiple dies. As we move towards more modular designs, aligning architectural intent with these physical realities will be key to achieving efficient, scalable systems.

Interconnects are no longer just about moving data; they are crucial to system-level optimization and directly impact performance and power goals for advanced applications.