25-10-2012, 12:31 PM
Morphable Computer Architectures for Highly Energy Aware Systems
ABSTRACT
To achieve a revolutionary reduction in overall power consumption, computing systems must be constructed out of both
inherently low-power structures and power-aware or energy-aware hardware and software subsystems. Today’s most prevalent
practices involve simple frequency scaling and modes where subsystems are merely powered on or off as needed. The energy
expended per computational event is not as adjustable, even when lower than peak performance is acceptable. This is true as
we move towards memory intensive hierarchical systems (such as register files, caches, SRAM, DRAM, Flash memory) where
placement of data within the hierarchy has as much effect on energy expenditures as lowering the logic power. As modern
processing systems begin to incorporate bigger and more complex storage hierarchies, it becomes imperative to incorporate
techniques for managing such storage hierarchies in a manner that reduces the energy dissipation in the system as a whole.
Power Aware architectures will provide a wide dynamic range in adjustable performance/energy settings, run-time software
to dynamically manage these settings against real-time constraints, compilation techniques, programmer hints and run-time
systems to control these settings or gears . In essence, we need a system that morphs to meet the performance needs of the
systems with the least amount of energy.