An Evolutionary Approach for Reducing the Energy in Address Buses

In this paper we present a genetic approach for the efficient generation of an encoder to minimize switching activity on the high-capacity lines of a communication bus. The approach is a static one in the sense that the encoder is realized ad hoc according to the traffic on the bus. This is not, however, a limiting hypothesis if the application scenario considered is that of embedded systems. An embedded system, in fact, executes the same application throughout its lifetime and so it is possible to have detailed knowledge of the trace of the patterns transmitted on a bus following execution of a specific application. The approach is compared with the most efficient encoding schemes proposed in the literature on both multiplexed and separate buses. The results obtained demonstrate the validity of the approach, which on average saves up to 50 % of the transitions normally required.