Instruction Balance, Energy Consumption and Program Performance

A computer consists of multiple components such as functional units, cache and main memory. At each moment of execution, a program may have a varied amount of work for each component. Recent development has exploited this imbalance to save energy by slowing the components that have a lower load. Example techniques include dynamic scaling and clock gating used in processors from Transmeta and Intel. Symmetrical to reconfiguring hardware is reorganizing software. We can alter program demand for different components by reordering program instructions. This paper explores the theoretical lower bound of energy consumption assuming that both a program and a machine are fully adjustable. It shows that a program with a balanced load always consumes less energy than the same program with uneven loads under the same execution speed. In addition, the paper examines the relation between energy consumption and program performance. It shows that reducing power is a different problem than that of improving performance. Finally, the paper presents empirical evidence showing that a program may be transformed to have a balanced demand in most parts of its execution