Optimizing intra-task voltage scheduling using data flow analysis

Intra-task voltage scheduling (IntraDVS), which adjusts the supply voltage within an individual task boundary, is an effective technique for developing low-power applications. In IntraDVS, slack times are estimated by analyzing program's control flow information. In this paper, we propose an optimization technique for IntraDVS using data flow information. The proposed algorithm improves the energy efficiency by moving the voltage scaling points to earlier instructions based on the analysis results of program's data flow. The experimental results using an MPEG-4 encoder program show that the proposed algorithm reduces the energy consumption by 40-45% over the original IntraDVS algorithm.