A Software-Only Solution to Use Scratch Pads for Stack Data

Author

Shrivastava, Aviral ; Kannan, Arun ; Lee, Jongeun

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci. & Eng., Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ, USA

Volume

28

Issue

11

fYear

2009

Firstpage

1719

Lastpage

1727

Abstract

A dynamic scratch pad memory (SPM) management scheme for program stack data with the objective of processor power reduction is presented. Basic technique does not need the SPM size at compile time, does not mandate any hardware changes, does not need profile information, and seamlessly integrates support for recursive functions. Stack frames are managed using a software SPM manager, integrated into the application binary, and shows average energy savings of 32% along with a performance improvement of 13%, on benchmarks from MiBench. SPM management can be further optimized and made pointer safe, by knowing the SPM size.

Keywords

program diagnostics; software process improvement; storage management; MiBench; dynamic scratch pad memory management scheme; program stack data; software SPM manager; software-only solution; static analysis; Application software; Embedded system; Energy management; Hardware; Memory management; Multicore processing; Power system management; Scanning probe microscopy; Software performance; Temperature; Cache; compilers; embedded systems; scratch pad memory (SPM); static analysis;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0278-0070

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TCAD.2009.2030592

Filename

5290354