  Emerging deep neural network (DNN) applications require high-performance
multi-core hardware acceleration with large data bursts. Classical
network-on-chips (NoCs) use serial packet-based protocols suffering from
significant protocol translation overheads towards the endpoints. This paper
proposes PATRONoC, an open-source fully AXI-compliant NoC fabric to better
address the specific needs of multi-core DNN computing platforms. Evaluation of
PATRONoC in a 2D-mesh topology shows 34% higher area efficiency compared to a
state-of-the-art classical NoC at 1 GHz. PATRONoC's throughput outperforms a
baseline NoC by 2-8X on uniform random traffic and provides a high aggregated
throughput of up to 350 GiB/s on synthetic and DNN workload traffic.
