Energy Based Analysis of Cache Design Shamik Bandyopadhyay (bandyos@eecs) Chris R. Baker (crbaker@eecs) CS252 Spring 2005

Problem Much of results in computer architecture focus on performance Power is an increasing concern in today’s designs Even greater concern in embedded systems domain Caches can be power hungry How do cache design decisions affect power or power x performance? Organization, replacement policies, etc.

Methodology Literature survey Simulator: SimpleScalar/Wattch Benchmarks Which make sense? Start with broad analysis of power or power x performance Narrow focus to particular design characteristic Ex: replacement policy Detailed simulation and analysis Modify SimpleScalar and/or Wattch power models

Hope to find… Cache design characteristic which yields slightly less performance with much better power consumption Foundation to propose cache designs for energy constrained applications

Related Work Many studies on cache for performance SPEC2000 benchmark analysis for cache replacement policies Existing studies on cache design for power Most limited to organization or addition of exotic features

References D. Burger, T. Austin, “The SimpleScalar Tool Set, Version 2.0”. D. Brooks, et al., “Wattch: A Framework for Architectural-Level Power Analysis and Optimizations”. H. Al-Zoubi, et al., “Performance Evaluation of Cache Replacement Policies for the Spec CPU2000 Benchmark Suite”. C-L. Su, A. Despain, “Cache Design Trade-offs for Power and Performance Optimization: A Case Study”.