A framework for dynamic energy efficiency and temperature management

While technology is delivering increasingly sophisticated and powerful chip designs, it is also imposing alarmingly high energy requirements on the chips. One way to address this problem is to manage the energy dynamically. Unfortunately, current dynamic schemes for energy management are relatively limited. In addition, they manage energy either for energy efficiency or for temperature control, but not for both simultaneously. In this paper, we design and evaluate for the first time an energy-management framework that tackles both energy efficiency and temperature control in a unified manner. We call this general approach Dynamic Energy Efficiency and Temperature Management (DEETM). Our framework combines many energy-management techniques and can activate them individually or in groups in a fine-grained manner according to a given policy. The goal of the framework is two-fold: maximize energy savings without extending application execution time beyond a given tolerable limit, and guarantee that the temperature remains below a given limit while minimizing any resulting slowdown. The framework successfully meets these goals. For example, it delivers a 40% energy reduction with only a 10% application slowdown.