Title :
A simulation framework for energy-consumption analysis of OS-driven embedded applications
Author :
Tan, T.K. ; Raghunathan, A. ; Jha, N.K.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Princeton Univ., NJ, USA
Abstract :
Energy consumption has become a major focus in the design of embedded systems (e.g., mobile computing and wireless communication devices). In particular, a shift of emphasis from hardware-oriented low-energy design techniques to energy-efficient embedded software design has occurred progressively in the past few years. To that end, various techniques have been developed for the design of energy-efficient embedded software. In operating system (OS)-driven embedded systems, the OS has a significant impact on the system´s energy consumption directly (energy consumption associated with the execution of the OS functions and services), as well as indirectly (interaction of the OS with the application software). As a first step toward designing energy-efficient OS-based embedded systems, it is important to analyze the energy consumption of embedded software by taking the OS energy characteristics into account. To facilitate such studies, we present, in this work, an energy simulation framework that can be used to analyze the energy consumption characteristics of an embedded system featuring the embedded Linux OS running on the StrongARM processor. The framework allows software designers to study the energy consumption of the system software in relation to the application software, identify the energy hot spots, and perform design changes based on the knowledge of the OS energy consumption characteristics as well as application-OS interactions.
Keywords :
Unix; circuit simulation; digital simulation; embedded systems; OS energy characteristics; OS-driven embedded system; StrongARM processor; embedded Linux OS; embedded system software; energy analysis; energy consumption; energy simulation framework; operating system; Analytical models; Application software; Computational modeling; Embedded computing; Embedded software; Embedded system; Energy consumption; Energy efficiency; Mobile computing; Software design;
Journal_Title :
Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TCAD.2003.816207