Low-Power and High-Performance Processor based on Co-optimization of Architecture and Compiler

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The purpose of this research is to achieve high performance and low power consumption by using compiler optimization on the usage of memory hierarchy. First, we proposed a new memory architecture which implements both software controlled memory and cache memory on a processor chip. By using the software controlled memory, compiler can optimize the data transfer between memory hierarchies and reduce power-wasting off-chip memory traffic. A new mechanism of register file is also proposed to reduce power consumption with little performance degradation. Second, we proposed a mechanism to shut down the voltage supply of the above new memory with fine granularity. Third, we developed a new compilation algorithm which co-operates with the above architecture for higher performance and lower power consumption. Energy consumption of a processor consists of dynamic energy and static energy. Because these two terms depend on the usage ration of software controlled memory independently, the least energy cannot be derived by minimizing either of them. Furthermore, static energy heavily depends on temperature. Thus, we propose a a new temperature aware compilation technique. The technique pre-computes the relationship between the memory usage ratio and operating temperature. Then, given source codes are optimized to select the best memory usage ratio dynamically by monitoring the operating temperature and by using the pre-computed relationship. We developed an environment to evaluate the effectiveness of our architecture and compilation algorithm. The evaluation results revealed that our co-optimization strategy can successfully reduce power consumption and achieve high performance.