Non-intrusive DVFS emulation in gem5 with application to self-aware architectures

The emergence of multi-processor systems-on-chip (MPSoC), the close interaction between the hardware architecture and the operating system, and the increasing requirements for energy efficiency are exacerbating the need for full-system architecture simulators such as gem5. A commonly-used technique for power optimizations is dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS). Native gem5 does not support DVFS. This work presents an efficient approach for prototyping and emulating DVFS in gem5. The approach is non-intrusive, easily modifiable and flexible. Several experimental results are provided to assess the efficiency of the method. Finally a test-case related to self-aware systems is presented to highlight the flexibility of the approach.