An automatic energy consumption characterization of processors using ArchC

Autor(es)

Guedes, Marcelo ; Auler, Rafael ; Duenha, Liana ; Bonin, Edson ; Azevedo, Rodolfo

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: JOURNAL OF SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE; v. 59, n. 8, p. 12-pg., 2013-09-01.

Resumo

The design complexity of integrated circuits requires techniques that automate and ease common tasks, allowing developers to keep up with the rapid growth and demand of the industry. This paper presents acSynth, an integrated framework for development and synthesis based on ArchC ADL descriptions and introduces a new power characterization method at the architectural level. The acSynth is composed of a characterization tool used to extract the energy consumption behavior of processors and also of a simulation method that, after characterization, is able to estimate software energy consumption at high speeds. Our experimental results show the power figures obtained by the characterization flow of Plasma and Leon3 processors, a MIPS-I and SPARCv8 HDL descriptions, respectively, using two different synthesis tools: Xilinx Xpower and Altera PowerPlay. The acSynth simulator used these power figures to allow power analysis at more than 35 million instructions per second in a simulation with small accuracy diversion and without loss of generality. The system executes large tests in minutes, which would otherwise take years in standard HDL methodologies. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 10/02230-5 - Geração automática de backend de compiladores baseada em ADLs
• Beneficiário: Rafael Auler
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Mestrado
• Processo FAPESP: 11/09630-1 - Técnicas para a emulação eficiente do conjunto de instruções da arquitetura Open-ISA
• Beneficiário: Rafael Auler
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Doutorado
• Processo FAPESP: 11/00901-2 - Algoritmos e suporte em hardware para projeto de máquinas virtuais eficientes
• Beneficiário: Edson Borin
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Regular