Exploring power management in multi-core systems

Abstract — Power dissipation has become a critical design met-ric in microprocessor-based system design. In a multi-core sys-tem, running multiple applications, power and performance can be dynamically traded off using an integrated power management (PM) unit. This PM unit monitors the performance and power of each core and dynamically adjusts the individual voltages and fre-quencies in order to maximize system performance under a given power budget (usually set by the operating system). This paper presents a performance and power analysis methodology, featur-ing a simulation model for multi-core systems that can be easily reconfigured for different scenarios and a PM infrastructure for the exploration and analysis of PM algorithms. Two algorithms have been implemented: one for discrete and one for continuous power modes based on non-linear programming. Extensive exper-iments are reported, illustrating the effect of power management both at the core and the chip level. I