Single-ISA heterogeneous multi-core architectures: The potential for processor power reduction

R. Kumar, K. I. Farkas, N. P. Jouppi, P. Ranganathan, D. M. Tullsen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

This paper proposes and evaluates single-ISA heterogeneous multi-core architectures as a mechanism to reduce processor power dissipation. Our design incorporates heterogeneous cores representing different points in the power/performance design space; during an application's execution, system software dynamically chooses the most appropriate core to meet specific performance and power requirements. Our evaluation of this architecture shows significant energy benefits. For an objective function that optimizes for energy efficiency with a tight performance threshold, for 14 SPEC benchmarks, our results indicate a 39% average energy reduction while only sacrificing 3% in performance. An objective function that optimizes for energy-delay with looser performance bounds achieves, on average, nearly a factor of three improvements in energy-delay product while sacrificing only 22% in performance. Energy savings are substantially more than chip-wide voltage/frequency scaling.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 36th International Symposium on Microarchitecture, MICRO 2003
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages81-92
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)076952043X
DOIs
StatePublished - 2003
Externally publishedYes
Event36th International Symposium on Microarchitecture, MICRO 2003 - San Diego, United States
Duration: Dec 3 2003Dec 5 2003

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual International Symposium on Microarchitecture, MICRO
Volume2003-January
ISSN (Print)1072-4451

Other

Other36th International Symposium on Microarchitecture, MICRO 2003
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Diego
Period12/3/0312/5/03

Keywords

  • Application software
  • Clocks
  • Computer architecture
  • Computer science
  • Energy consumption
  • Frequency
  • Milling machines
  • Power dissipation
  • Power engineering and energy
  • System software

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Hardware and Architecture

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