Renesas (1999-2003)

Title: System-level power optimisations for portable applications
Research Engineer: Kristian Hildingsson
Sponsor: Renesas
Academic Supervision: Prof Tughrul Arslan, University of Edinburgh

The goal of the project is to define a power optimisation methodology along with general guidelines for SoC design. Both software and hardware techniques will be considered for the optimisation of heterogeneous systems in application areas such as GSM and smartcards. Such systems typically contain a hybrid mix of microprocessors and computationally intensive DSP units within a SoC framework.

The main focus of the project is to develop techniques for predicting power and energy consumption at an early stage in the design process for the systems mentioned above. The development of power models at the machine instruction level, in conjunction with instruction set simulation and trace analysis, enables the formation of a power evaluation environment.

This simulation environment enables low power techniques to be explored quickly and accurately. Feedback will be used for improvement of instruction set, identification and improvement of power hungry design blocks, and optimisation of compilers to select power efficient instructions or Macros.

The new power optimisation methodology will incorporate power in the design process, as a key parameter, in addition to the traditional performance metrics such as speed and area.

The project doctoral thesis was submitted in February 2004 and the student graduated in July 2004. He is currently employed by Semcon Sweden AB.

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