Compiler Schemes for Server-assisted Energy-efficient Mobile Computing on Handheld Devices

具有无线网络连接的手持计算设备在网络世界中具有成为访问信息和软件资源的强大移动工具的巨大潜力。遗憾的是，当前手持设备的计算能力和连接时间受到电池寿命较短的严重限制。此外，电池问题还对各种设计方面造成了限制，包括程序存储器和辅助存储、CPU和操作系统。随着通过无线网络连接到计算服务器，手持设备通过谨慎地利用服务器的功率来节省电池的机会很多。这个项目探索了编译器和运行时技术，以帮助将应用程序划分为服务器任务和客户端任务。最佳分区取决于可用的网络带宽和应用程序的性质。为了使手持设备在广泛的应用中以最佳方式利用服务器，需要在网络通信所消耗的能量和计算所消耗的能量之间进行仔细的权衡。提出的编译器技术和运行时支持包括对工作和通信需求的编译时和运行时分析、利用手持设备上的低功耗网络状态、运行时决策和轻量级软件一致性机制。

Handheld computing devices with wireless network connections have a great potential to be powerful mobile tools to access information and software resources in the networked world. Unfortunately, the computing power and connection time of current handheld devices are severely constrained by the short battery life. Moreover, the battery issue also places constraints on various design aspects including program memory and secondary storage, CPU, and operating system. With connection to computing servers through wireless networks, there exist many opportunities for handheld devices to save battery by carefully utilizing the power of the servers. This project explores compiler and run-time techniques to assist the partitioning of application programs into server tasks and client tasks. The optimal partition depends on available network bandwidth and on the nature of applications. In order for handheld devices to optimally exploit servers for a wide range of applications, careful tradeoff is made between energy consumed by network communication versus computation. The proposed compiler techniques and run-time support include compile-time and run-time analysis of work and communication requirement, exploitation of low-power networking states on handhelds, run-time decision-making, and a light-weight software coherence mechanism.