Low-Complexity Policies for Energy-Performance Tradeoff in Chip-Multi-Processors

Chip-multi-processor (CMP) utilize multiple energy-efficient processing elements (PEs) to deliver high performance while reducing energy-consumption. Dynamic frequency-Voltage Scaling (DVS) balances performance and energy consumption by varying PEs' frequency-voltage
workpoints
to save energy while meeting performance requirements. We consider multi-task CMP applications with unknown workloads, and dynamically set workpoints to minimize . Heuristic policies for serial/parallel task-graphs are investigated. We compare these policies to a theoretical bound and show that they achieve good results with low complexity. In most cases the simplest policy, which usually assigns constant workpoints, is also the most cost-effective one.