Microarchitecture-level power management

• Published in: IEEE transactions on very large scale integration (VLSI) systems Vol. 10; no. 3; pp. 230 - 239
• Main Authors: Iyer, A., Marculescu, D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway, NJ IEEE 01.06.2002; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Density; Electronics; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Energy management; Exact sciences and technology; Hardware; Integrated circuits; Integrated circuits by function (including memories and processors); Management; Microarchitecture; Microprocessors; Parallel processing; Portable computers; Potential energy; Power management; Running; Runtime; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Software reviews; Strategy; Thermal management; Very large scale integration; Performance evaluation; Energy consumption; VLSI circuit; Parallel architectures; Desk computer; Interface circuit; Superscalar processor; Energy savings; Implementation; Optimal design; Circuit architecture; Experimental result; Energy dissipation; Integrated circuit; Portable equipment; Microprocessor; Advanced technology; Energy management
• ISSN: 1063-8210; 1557-9999
• DOI: 10.1109/TVLSI.2002.1043326

In this paper, we present a strategy for run-time profiling to optimize the configuration of a superscalar microprocessor dynamically so as to save power with minimum-performance penalty. The configuration of the processor is changed according to the parallelism and power profile of the running application. To identify the optimal configuration, additional hardware with minimal overhead is used to detect the parts of the running application which have good potential for energy savings. Experiments on some benchmark programs show good savings in total energy consumption; we have observed a mean decrease of 18% in average power, and 9% in total energy. Our proposed approach can be used for energy-aware computing in either portable applications or in desktop environments where power density is becoming a concern. This approach can also be incorporated in power-management strategies like advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI) as a replacement for classic thermal management schemes such as static-clock throttling. Our approach is shown to be better than static-throttling methods presently used in power management.