Exposing datapath elements to reduce microprocessor energy consumption
Name
49223475-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
6.68 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
943651dd15d18a40c785f38087442ee8
Author(s)
Hampton, Mark Jerome, 1977-
Advisor(s)
Krste Asanović.
Date Issued
2001
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
In this thesis, we evaluate the feasibility of exposing elements in a processor's datapath to the compiler in order to reduce energy consumption. We focus on eliminating register file traffic by exposing the latches in the bypass network, as our study shows that there is potential for significant benefit by doing this. We present the idea of software restart markers to handle the exception management overhead that results from exposing additional processor state. We then implement our proposed techniques and observe an average energy savings of 7.0% across a range of benchmarks when compared to a low-power MIPS processor. We also explore the implications of changing the pipeline structure to both improve performance and expose more machine state.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2001.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-80).
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
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