1. A method, comprising: associating a tag with one or more packets of at least one input channel of a network on chip (NoC), the tag comprising information for one or more arbitration decisions, each of the one or more packets comprising routing information; reading the information of the tag; and conducting an arbitration of the one or more packets for an output channel based on the reading of the information for ones of the packets having routing information that share a same output channel; wherein the information for one or more arbitration decisions is an indication of one of a normal packet and a barrier packet, and wherein the conducting the arbitration comprises: setting the output channel to one of a normal phase and a barrier phase; for the output channel set to the barrier phase, allowing only ones of the one or more packets having routing information indicative of the barrier packet to be sent on the output channel; for the output channel set to the normal phase, allowing only ones of the one or more packets having routing information indicative of the normal packet to be sent on the output channel.