DescriptionA Cognitive Radio processing requires intelligent transceiver which can be easily programmed and reconfigured dynamically to support multiple protocols. The Winlab Network Centric Cognitive Radio (WiNC2R) platform is based on the concept of Virtual Flow Pipelining Paradigm. WiNC2R can support per packet protocol adaption through the reconfiguration of function sequencing. Since WiNC2R platform can be programmed by adding additional functions in software, and flow sequencing reprogramming architecturally supported in hardware, it can easily support future protocols. The latest version of WiNC2R has advanced shared VFP control unit, cluster based SoC architecture with all the processing engines in an 802.11a like OFDM transmitter flow. It is very important to characterize the VFP overhead with the realistic protocol processing examples to understand the performance and cost penalties of added flexibility, and establish the base for the comparison with Software Defined Radio approach. The performance analysis of the VFP will give detailed insight about the various latencies involved in the VFP processing. VFP Architecture is validated to see that the current implementation does meet the requirements of the WiNC2R platform. This performance analysis will help in characterizing VFP overhead under varying throughput requirements. Architectural validation of VFP will characterize certain parameters of the system programming, like reschedule period, guard time, etc.