Embedded Multi-Processor System-on-chip (MPSoC) design considering process variations

As technology scales, the delay uncertainty caused by process variations has become increasingly pronounced in deep sub-micron designs. As a result, a paradigm shift from deterministic to statistical design methodology at all levels of the design hierarchy is inevitable (Borkar, 2005). As part of two NSF projects (NSF CNS CAREER 0643902 and NSF CNS 0720659), a variation-aware task allocation and scheduling method for multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) architectures is proposed, to mitigate the impact of parameter variations. A new design metric, called performance yield and defined as the probability of the assigned schedule meeting the predefined performance constraints, is used to guide the task allocation and scheduling procedure. An efficient yield computation method for task scheduling complements and significantly improves the effectiveness of the proposed variation-aware scheduling algorithm. Experimental results show that our variation-aware scheduler achieves significant yield improvements.