Issues in the Design of Low Power, High Performance Processors

随着便携式移动系统的日益重要，功耗已被提升为一个关键的设计参数。对功耗的关注对于性能驱动型设计也很重要，在这种设计中，功耗可能很快就会取代芯片面积，成为主要的设计限制。这就是这个项目的动机，该项目专注于低功耗、高性能处理器的设计，特别是那些为移动环境而定制的处理器。人们寻求在架构、软件和应用程序方面取得进步。体系结构领域的活动包括低功耗数据路径功能单元的设计和表征、低功耗控制逻辑的设计、低功耗片上高速缓存的设计，以及一组用于设计低功耗微体系结构的策略的推导和量化。软件和应用领域将研究编译器优化技术、算法和数据结构对在候选体系结构上运行的代码的功耗的影响。

With the increasing importance of portable, mobile systems, power consumption has been elevated to be a critical design parameter. Concern over power dissipation is also important for performance-driven designs where power may soon displace chip area as the principal design constraint. This is the motivation for this project, which focuses on the design of low-power, high-performance processors, particularly those customized for use in a mobile environment. Advances are sought in architecture, software, and applications. Activities in the architecture area include the design and characterization of low-power data path functional units, the design of low-power control logic, the design of low- power on-chip caches, and the derivation and quantification of a set of strategies for designing low-power microarchitectures. The software and applications areas will include a study of the effects of compiler optimization techniques, algorithms, and data structures on power consumption of code running on candidate architectures.