SHF: NeTS: Medium: Collaborative Research: The Power of Less Wiring: Wireless NoC-enabled Voltage-Frequency Islands (VFIs) for Energy-Efficient Multicore Platforms

通过大规模集成的多核系统进行并行处理可以为许多实际应用提供前所未有的性能水平，例如网络、电子商务、科学计算、娱乐等。然而，这种多核平台的设计主要受电力和热量限制的影响，这些限制需要解决才能使其实用。事实上，由于其对性能、温度、可靠性、可扩展性和环境影响的影响，不断增加的功率和散热是一个主要问题。因此，该项目以电力和热效率高的多核系统设计为目标的跨学科研究课程为目标，旨在提高人们的认识，并增加吸引到这一工程领域的学生数量。为此，该项目还旨在让代表性不足的群体参与研究，通过催化创造更可持续的环境，利用他们在REU和IGERT项目中的经验。在研究的技术方面，该项目定义了一个综合的理论-实施-评估框架，旨在开发新的算法、架构和工具集，以设计和评估可持续的多核系统，同时为必要的电力/性能/热量权衡提供系统资源。研究的目标是开发一种新的通信网络，包括传统有线和新兴的片上无线链路，适合于支持电压和频率调节，多内核操作系统下用于分布式资源管理和分级控制的新算法，以及用于扩展范围动态电压和频率调节的统一功率-性能模型，并验证功率/性能权衡。

Parallel processing via massively integrated multicore systems can offer unprecedented levels of performance for many real applications, e.g., networking, e-commerce, scientific computing, entertainment, etc. However, the design of such multicore platforms is dominated by the power and thermal constraints that need to be addressed in order to make them practical. Indeed, the increasing power and thermal dissipation represents a major concern due to its impact on performance, temperature, reliability, scalability, and environmental impact. Consequently, this project targets an interdisciplinary research-based curriculum for power and thermally efficient multi-core system design meant to raise awareness and increase the number of students attracted to this area of engineering. Towards this end, this project also aims at involving underrepresented groups in research leveraging their experience with REU and IGERT projects via catalyzing the creation of more sustainable environments.In terms of technical aspects of the research, this project defines an integrated theory-implementation-evaluation framework, which aims at developing new algorithms, architectures, and tool-sets to design and evaluate sustainable multicore systems while provisioning the system resources for the necessary power/performance/thermal trade-offs. The research objectives target the development of a new communication network consisting of both traditional wires and emerging on-chip wireless links suitable to support voltage and frequency scaling, new algorithms for distributed resource management and hierarchical control under multi-kernel operating systems, and unified power-performance models for extended range dynamic voltage and frequency scaling with validation of power/performance trade-offs.