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access icon free Design and evaluation of fine-grain-mode transition method based on dynamic memory access analysing for variable stages pipeline processor

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Received 28/05/2012, Accepted 29/01/2013, Revised 17/01/2013, Published

This study proposes a fine-grain-mode transition method for variable stages pipeline (VSP) processor. The method is based on dynamic memory access analysing and it reduces energy consumption. A VSP processor varies the pipeline depth dynamically according to workload. When the workload is heavy, the processor shifts into a high-speed mode that drives a deep pipeline at a high clock frequency. When the workload is light, the processor shifts into a low-energy mode that unifies pipeline stages to make the pipeline shallower and drives it at a low clock frequency. The conventional mode transition method cannot follow sharp workload changes because it takes a long time to predict workload. The fine-grain pipeline depth control, this study proposes, is based on a high-speed workload prediction mechanism using memory access frequency, and it uses a novel method to conceal the overhead because of changing the pipeline depth. Simulation results show that the authors approach can reduce the energy-delay product 10% below what it would be with the conventional approach.

Inspec keywords: storage management; pipeline processing; power aware computing

Other keywords: clock frequency; high-speed mode; variable stage pipeline processor; dynamic memory access analysis; workload prediction mechanism; energy consumption; low-energy mode; memory access frequency; pipeline depth; fine-grain-mode transition method; VSP processor; workload change; energy-delay product

Subjects: Multiprocessing systems; Performance evaluation and testing; File organisation

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