GREENDROID:AN ARCHITECTURE FOR DARK SILICON AGE

February 23, 2013

1 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

2 / 29

GO GREEN FOR A BETTER TOMORRROW....

What is this GREEN concept???

Green technology points to energy efficient techniques .

Scarcity for energy resources

looking for energy efficient designs & architectures.

3 / 29

GO GREEN FOR A BETTER TOMORRROW....

What is this GREEN concept???

Green technology points to energy efficient techniques .

Scarcity for energy resources

looking for energy efficient designs & architectures.

3 / 29

GO GREEN FOR A BETTER TOMORRROW....

What is this GREEN concept???

Green technology points to energy efficient techniques .

Scarcity for energy resources

looking for energy efficient designs & architectures.

3 / 29

Mobile application processors are soonto replace desktop processors as thefocus of innovation in microprocessortechnology . Smart phones sales surpassthose of desktops.

4 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

5 / 29

ANDROID PLATFORM

A Linux based operating system

Mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers .

An open source , developed by the open handset alliance led byGoogle .

A multi-channel , multi-core OS.

6 / 29

ANDROID PLATFORM

A Linux based operating system

Mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers .

An open source , developed by the open handset alliance led byGoogle .

A multi-channel , multi-core OS.

6 / 29

ANDROID PLATFORM

A Linux based operating system

Mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers .

An open source , developed by the open handset alliance led byGoogle .

A multi-channel , multi-core OS.

6 / 29

ANDROID PLATFORM

A Linux based operating system

Mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers .

An open source , developed by the open handset alliance led byGoogle .

A multi-channel , multi-core OS.

6 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

7 / 29

DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

Power consumption is more , since it is mainly meant for internetsurfing , co-operate applications.

Frequently using applications always remains on , unless we clear thetask manager and it consumes power

Normally uses 200 mah , where battery provides 1500 mah.

8 / 29

DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

Power consumption is more , since it is mainly meant for internetsurfing , co-operate applications.

Frequently using applications always remains on , unless we clear thetask manager and it consumes power

Normally uses 200 mah , where battery provides 1500 mah.

8 / 29

DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

Power consumption is more , since it is mainly meant for internetsurfing , co-operate applications.

Frequently using applications always remains on , unless we clear thetask manager and it consumes power

Normally uses 200 mah , where battery provides 1500 mah.

8 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

9 / 29

WHAT IS THIS DARK SILICON??

Plays an pivotal role in shaping the future of mobile processors.

With each process generation, power budget becomes exponentiallymore valuable in comparison

Dark silicon is necessary, because engineers are unable to reducechips’ operating voltages any further to offset increases in powerconsumption and waste heat produced by smaller, faster chips .

This dark silicon limits the utilization of the application processors tothe fullest.

10 / 29

WHAT IS THIS DARK SILICON??

Plays an pivotal role in shaping the future of mobile processors.

With each process generation, power budget becomes exponentiallymore valuable in comparison

Dark silicon is necessary, because engineers are unable to reducechips’ operating voltages any further to offset increases in powerconsumption and waste heat produced by smaller, faster chips .

This dark silicon limits the utilization of the application processors tothe fullest.

10 / 29

WHAT IS THIS DARK SILICON??

Plays an pivotal role in shaping the future of mobile processors.

With each process generation, power budget becomes exponentiallymore valuable in comparison

Dark silicon is necessary, because engineers are unable to reducechips’ operating voltages any further to offset increases in powerconsumption and waste heat produced by smaller, faster chips .

This dark silicon limits the utilization of the application processors tothe fullest.

10 / 29

WHAT IS THIS DARK SILICON??

Plays an pivotal role in shaping the future of mobile processors.

With each process generation, power budget becomes exponentiallymore valuable in comparison

Dark silicon is necessary, because engineers are unable to reducechips’ operating voltages any further to offset increases in powerconsumption and waste heat produced by smaller, faster chips .

This dark silicon limits the utilization of the application processors tothe fullest.

10 / 29

SCALING THEORY

Scaling Thoery:

Transistors and powerbudgets no longer balanced

Exponentially increasingproblem!!

11 / 29

SCALING THEORY

Scaling Thoery:

Transistors and powerbudgets no longer balanced

Exponentially increasingproblem!!

11 / 29

SCALING THEORY

Scaling Thoery:

Transistors and powerbudgets no longer balanced

Exponentially increasingproblem!!

11 / 29

Need to give more focus on energy efficiency....

12 / 29

Need to give more focus on energy efficiency....

12 / 29

WHAT DO WE DO WITH DARK SILICON??

InsightsPower is now more expensive than area.

Specialised logic has been shown as an effective way to improve energyefficiency(10-1000x)

Our Approach:Fill dark silicon with specialised cores to save energy on common apps

Power savings can be applied to other program,increasing throughput

C-cores provide an architectural way to trade area for an effectiveincrease in power budget!

13 / 29

WHAT DO WE DO WITH DARK SILICON??

InsightsPower is now more expensive than area.Specialised logic has been shown as an effective way to improve energyefficiency(10-1000x)

Our Approach:Fill dark silicon with specialised cores to save energy on common appsPower savings can be applied to other program,increasing throughput

C-cores provide an architectural way to trade area for an effectiveincrease in power budget!

13 / 29

WHAT DO WE DO WITH DARK SILICON??

InsightsPower is now more expensive than area.Specialised logic has been shown as an effective way to improve energyefficiency(10-1000x)

Our Approach:Fill dark silicon with specialised cores to save energy on common appsPower savings can be applied to other program,increasing throughput

C-cores provide an architectural way to trade area for an effectiveincrease in power budget!

13 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

14 / 29

CONSERVATION CORES

Specialised cores for reducing energyAutomatically generated from hotregions of program source

Patching support future proofs HWFully automated toolchain

Drop-in replacements for code

Hot code implemented by C-core coldcode runs on host CPUHW generation/SW integration.

Enegy efficientUp to 16x for targeted hot code.

15 / 29

CONSERVATION CORES

Specialised cores for reducing energyAutomatically generated from hotregions of program sourcePatching support future proofs HW

Fully automated toolchainDrop-in replacements for codeHot code implemented by C-core coldcode runs on host CPU

HW generation/SW integration.Enegy efficient

Up to 16x for targeted hot code.

15 / 29

CONSERVATION CORES

Specialised cores for reducing energyAutomatically generated from hotregions of program sourcePatching support future proofs HW

Fully automated toolchainDrop-in replacements for codeHot code implemented by C-core coldcode runs on host CPUHW generation/SW integration.

Enegy efficientUp to 16x for targeted hot code.

15 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

16 / 29

GREENDROID : a boon to the dark silicon problem.

If you fill the chip with highly specialized cores, then the fraction ofthe chip that is lit up at one time can be the most energy efficient forthat particular task.

A 45 nm multi core research prototype.

It targets the Android mobile phone software stack and can executegeneral purpose mobile programs with 11 times less energy than mostenergy efficient designs at similar or better levels of performance.

17 / 29

GREENDROID : a boon to the dark silicon problem.

If you fill the chip with highly specialized cores, then the fraction ofthe chip that is lit up at one time can be the most energy efficient forthat particular task.

A 45 nm multi core research prototype.

It targets the Android mobile phone software stack and can executegeneral purpose mobile programs with 11 times less energy than mostenergy efficient designs at similar or better levels of performance.

17 / 29

GREENDROID : a boon to the dark silicon problem.

If you fill the chip with highly specialized cores, then the fraction ofthe chip that is lit up at one time can be the most energy efficient forthat particular task.

A 45 nm multi core research prototype.

It targets the Android mobile phone software stack and can executegeneral purpose mobile programs with 11 times less energy than mostenergy efficient designs at similar or better levels of performance.

17 / 29

GREENDROID : a boon to the dark silicon problem.

If you fill the chip with highly specialized cores, then the fraction ofthe chip that is lit up at one time can be the most energy efficient forthat particular task.

A 45 nm multi core research prototype.

It targets the Android mobile phone software stack and can executegeneral purpose mobile programs with 11 times less energy than mostenergy efficient designs at similar or better levels of performance.

17 / 29

GREENDROID will serve as a prototype for mobile applicationprocessors in the next five to ten years.

It has a specially built structure that can analyze a current Androidphone and determine which apps, and which CPU circuits the phoneis using the most.

Then it can dream up a processor design that best takes advantage ofthose usage habits, creating a CPU that’s both faster and more energyefficient.

18 / 29

GREENDROID will serve as a prototype for mobile applicationprocessors in the next five to ten years.

It has a specially built structure that can analyze a current Androidphone and determine which apps, and which CPU circuits the phoneis using the most.

Then it can dream up a processor design that best takes advantage ofthose usage habits, creating a CPU that’s both faster and more energyefficient.

18 / 29

GREENDROID will serve as a prototype for mobile applicationprocessors in the next five to ten years.

It has a specially built structure that can analyze a current Androidphone and determine which apps, and which CPU circuits the phoneis using the most.

Then it can dream up a processor design that best takes advantage ofthose usage habits, creating a CPU that’s both faster and more energyefficient.

18 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

19 / 29

Architecture...

20 / 29

Continues...

C-cores are most useful when they target code that execute frequently.

C-core tool chain transforms the most frequently executed code intoc-core hardware.

ANDROID is an excellent target for GREENDROID stylearchitecture.

Android comprises three main components . Linux kernel , acollection of native libraries(written in c and c plus),virtual machine .These all are hot codes.

On profiling diverse set of android applications including webbrowser , mail , video player it can be found that this workload spends95% of its time executing just 43,000 static instruction . Just 7nm of a45nm process will replace these key instructions.

21 / 29

Continues...

C-cores are most useful when they target code that execute frequently.

C-core tool chain transforms the most frequently executed code intoc-core hardware.

ANDROID is an excellent target for GREENDROID stylearchitecture.

Android comprises three main components . Linux kernel , acollection of native libraries(written in c and c plus),virtual machine .These all are hot codes.

On profiling diverse set of android applications including webbrowser , mail , video player it can be found that this workload spends95% of its time executing just 43,000 static instruction . Just 7nm of a45nm process will replace these key instructions.

21 / 29

Continues...

C-cores are most useful when they target code that execute frequently.

C-core tool chain transforms the most frequently executed code intoc-core hardware.

ANDROID is an excellent target for GREENDROID stylearchitecture.

Android comprises three main components . Linux kernel , acollection of native libraries(written in c and c plus),virtual machine .These all are hot codes.

On profiling diverse set of android applications including webbrowser , mail , video player it can be found that this workload spends95% of its time executing just 43,000 static instruction . Just 7nm of a45nm process will replace these key instructions.

21 / 29

Continues...

C-cores are most useful when they target code that execute frequently.

C-core tool chain transforms the most frequently executed code intoc-core hardware.

ANDROID is an excellent target for GREENDROID stylearchitecture.

Android comprises three main components . Linux kernel , acollection of native libraries(written in c and c plus),virtual machine .These all are hot codes.

On profiling diverse set of android applications including webbrowser , mail , video player it can be found that this workload spends95% of its time executing just 43,000 static instruction . Just 7nm of a45nm process will replace these key instructions.

21 / 29

Continues...

C-cores are most useful when they target code that execute frequently.

C-core tool chain transforms the most frequently executed code intoc-core hardware.

ANDROID is an excellent target for GREENDROID stylearchitecture.

Android comprises three main components . Linux kernel , acollection of native libraries(written in c and c plus),virtual machine .These all are hot codes.

On profiling diverse set of android applications including webbrowser , mail , video player it can be found that this workload spends95% of its time executing just 43,000 static instruction . Just 7nm of a45nm process will replace these key instructions.

21 / 29

HOW THE CODES ARE GENERATED:An example

22 / 29

23 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

24 / 29

EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

25 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

26 / 29

CONCLUSION

Utilization wall will exponentially worsen the problem of dark silicon.

The GREENDROID prototype is a demonstration vehicle that showsthe wide spread application of c-cores to android.

C-core reduce energy consumption for key regions.

C-core make use of selective de pipelining & reduce energyconsumption by 91%

27 / 29

CONCLUSION

Utilization wall will exponentially worsen the problem of dark silicon.

The GREENDROID prototype is a demonstration vehicle that showsthe wide spread application of c-cores to android.

C-core reduce energy consumption for key regions.

C-core make use of selective de pipelining & reduce energyconsumption by 91%

27 / 29

CONCLUSION

Utilization wall will exponentially worsen the problem of dark silicon.

The GREENDROID prototype is a demonstration vehicle that showsthe wide spread application of c-cores to android.

C-core reduce energy consumption for key regions.

C-core make use of selective de pipelining & reduce energyconsumption by 91%

27 / 29

CONCLUSION

Utilization wall will exponentially worsen the problem of dark silicon.

The GREENDROID prototype is a demonstration vehicle that showsthe wide spread application of c-cores to android.

C-core reduce energy consumption for key regions.

C-core make use of selective de pipelining & reduce energyconsumption by 91%

27 / 29

Contents1 GREEN TECHNOLOGY

2 ANDROID PLATFORM

3 DRAWBACKS OF ANDROID

4 UTILIZATION WALL & DARK SILICON

5 C-CORES

6 GREENDROID

7 ARCHITECTURE

8 EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

9 CONCLUSION

10 REFERENCES

28 / 29

References

G. Venkatesh et al., Conservation Cores: Reducing the Energy ofMature Computations,: Proc.15th Intl Conf.Architectural Support forProgramming Languages and Operating Systems,ACM Press, 2010,pp. 205/-218. 15th Intl. Conf. Architectural Support for Prog.Languages and Op. Sys., Mar. 2010.

N. Goulding et al., GreenDroid: A Mobile Application Processor for aFuture of Dark Silicon, HotChips, 2010.

R. Dennard et al., Design of Ion-Implanted MOSFETs with VerySmall Physical Dimensions, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits, Oct. 1974.

M. Taylor et al., The Raw Processor: A Scalable 32 bit Fabric forGeneral Purpose and Embedded Computing, HotChips, 2001.

29 / 29

References

G. Venkatesh et al., Conservation Cores: Reducing the Energy ofMature Computations,: Proc.15th Intl Conf.Architectural Support forProgramming Languages and Operating Systems,ACM Press, 2010,pp. 205/-218. 15th Intl. Conf. Architectural Support for Prog.Languages and Op. Sys., Mar. 2010.

N. Goulding et al., GreenDroid: A Mobile Application Processor for aFuture of Dark Silicon, HotChips, 2010.

R. Dennard et al., Design of Ion-Implanted MOSFETs with VerySmall Physical Dimensions, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits, Oct. 1974.

M. Taylor et al., The Raw Processor: A Scalable 32 bit Fabric forGeneral Purpose and Embedded Computing, HotChips, 2001.

29 / 29

References

G. Venkatesh et al., Conservation Cores: Reducing the Energy ofMature Computations,: Proc.15th Intl Conf.Architectural Support forProgramming Languages and Operating Systems,ACM Press, 2010,pp. 205/-218. 15th Intl. Conf. Architectural Support for Prog.Languages and Op. Sys., Mar. 2010.

N. Goulding et al., GreenDroid: A Mobile Application Processor for aFuture of Dark Silicon, HotChips, 2010.

R. Dennard et al., Design of Ion-Implanted MOSFETs with VerySmall Physical Dimensions, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits, Oct. 1974.

M. Taylor et al., The Raw Processor: A Scalable 32 bit Fabric forGeneral Purpose and Embedded Computing, HotChips, 2001.

29 / 29

References

G. Venkatesh et al., Conservation Cores: Reducing the Energy ofMature Computations,: Proc.15th Intl Conf.Architectural Support forProgramming Languages and Operating Systems,ACM Press, 2010,pp. 205/-218. 15th Intl. Conf. Architectural Support for Prog.Languages and Op. Sys., Mar. 2010.

N. Goulding et al., GreenDroid: A Mobile Application Processor for aFuture of Dark Silicon, HotChips, 2010.

R. Dennard et al., Design of Ion-Implanted MOSFETs with VerySmall Physical Dimensions, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits, Oct. 1974.

M. Taylor et al., The Raw Processor: A Scalable 32 bit Fabric forGeneral Purpose and Embedded Computing, HotChips, 2001.

29 / 29