Power Consumption Reduction in Java-enabled, Battery-powered Handheld Devices through Memory Compression

Mobile/wireless services have been developed using Java technology on Java-enabled, battery-powered handheld devices. These services such as games, web browser, audio/video players, are easily accessible, but consume a huge amount of power. The handheld devices typically last for 5 to 6 hours in running the Java applications. A new technique for low power consumption is to be developed. Using runtime power control in Java-enabled, battery-powered handheld devices. The technique improves in-memory compression to minimize memory consumption and a memory bank partitioning technique to cluster memory banks into active banks and inactive banks are powered off dynamically. The runtime power control is integrated into a Java runtime environment (JREPC) using a hardware/software codesign technique. The JREPC is studied and examined with benchmark applications (web, email, audio/video, game, M-commerce). The in-memory compression reduces more than 50 % of memory consumption. Only half of the memory may be activated. The time overhead due to the in-memory compression is negligible using a hardware de/compressor. We believe that the in-memory compression with the memory bank partitioning technique is a key to achieving low power consumption in the Java-enabled, battery-powered handheld devices.