Adaptive low-power address encoding techniques using self-organizing lists

Off-chip bus transitions are a major source of power dissipation for embedded systems. In this paper, new adaptive encoding schemes are proposed that significantly reduce transition activity on data and multiplexed address buses. These adaptive techniques are based on self-organizing lists to achieve reduction in transition activity by exploiting the spatial and temporal locality of the addresses. Also the proposed techniques do not require any extra bit lines and have minimal delay overhead. The techniques are evaluated for efficiency using a wide variety of application programs including SPEC 95 benchmark set. Unlike previous approaches that focus on instruction address buses, experiments demonstrate significant reduction in transition activity of up to 54% in data address buses and up to 59% in multiplexed address buses. The average reductions are twice those obtained using current schemes on a data address bus and more than twice those obtained on a multiplexed address bus.     

Inter-Wire Coupling Reduction Analysis of Bus-Invert Coding

Bus-invert (BI) coding is the first encoding method for reducing peak and average self-switching power on a bus. It can also reduce capacitive coupling between bus lines. Although it is no longer used as a stand-alone method, it is often used as a starting point for developing a more sophisticated method. Despite its wide use, researchers in the past often resorted to simulations or depended on their intuition to obtain the switching and coupling characteristics. We clearly need a simple but accurate way to carry out this task. We previously published results on BI coding analysis for switching activity reduction. In this paper we conduct a theoretical analysis of BI coding for coupling reduction for uncorrelated uniformly distributed data. Our findings include a set of closed-form formulas for computing the number of couplings per bus transfer for a nonpartitioned versus a partitioned bus. These formulas are simple and easily understandable. They can be readily used for calculating couplings by simply plugging one or two parameter values into them.      

Bus encoder design for reduced crosstalk,power and area in coupled VLSI interconnects

This research work presents a novel circuit for simultaneous reduction of power, crosstalk and area using bus encoding technique in RC modeled VLSI interconnect. Bus-invert method is used to reduce inter-wire coupling, which is actually responsible for crosstalk, delay and power dissipation in coupled interconnects. The proposed method focuses on simplified and improved encoder circuit for 4, 8 and 16 coupled lines. In past, the researchers developed encoders that usually focused on minimizing power dissipation and/or crosstalk, thereby paying heavy penalty in terms of chip area. However, the proposed encoder and decoder while significantly reducing crosstalk demonstrates an overall reduction of power dissipation by 68.76% through drastically limiting switching activity. Furthermore, while reducing the complexity, chip area and transistor count of the circuit is reduced by more than 57%.     

Instruction Fetch Energy Reduction with Biased SRAMs

Especially in programmable processors, energy consumption of integrated memories can become a limiting design factor due to thermal dissipation power constraints and limited battery capacity. Consequently, contemporary improvement efforts on memory technologies are focusing more on the energy-efficiency aspects, which has resulted in biased CMOS SRAM cells that increase energy efficiency by favoring one logical value over another. In this paper, xor-masking, a method for exploiting such contemporary low power SRAM memories is proposed to improve the energy-efficiency of instruction fetching. Xor-masking utilizes static program analysis statistics to produce optimal encoding masks to reduce the occurrence of the more energy consuming instruction bit values in the fetched instructions. The method is evaluated on LatticeMico32, a small RISC core popular in ultra low power designs, and on a wide instruction word high performance low power DSP. Compared to the previous “bus invert” technique typically used with similar SRAMs, the proposed method reduces instruction read energy consumption of the LatticeMico32 by up to 13% and 38% on the DSP core.     

Area and Power Reduction of Embedded DSP Systems using Instruction Compression and Re-configurable Encoding

In embedded control applications, system cost and power/energy consumption are key considerations. In such applications, program memory forms a significant part of the chip area. Hence reducing code size reduces the system cost significantly. A significant part of the total power is consumed in fetching instructions from the program memory. Hence reducing instruction fetch power has been a key target for reducing power consumption. To reduce the cost and power consumption, embedded systems in these applications use application specific processors that are fine tuned to provide better solutions in terms of code density, and power consumption. Further fine tuning to suit each particular application in the targeted class can be achieved through reconfigurable architectures. In this paper, we propose a reconfiguration mechanism, called Instruction Re-map Table, to re-map the instructions to shorter length code words. Using this mechanism, frequently used set of instructions can be compressed. This reduces code size and hence the cost. Secondly, we use the same mechanism to target power reduction by encoding frequently used instruction sequences to Gray codes. Such encodings, along with instruction compression, reduce the instruction fetch power. We enhance Texas Instruments DSP core TMS320C27x to incorporate this mechanism and evaluate the improvements on code size and instruction fetch energy using real life embedded control application programs as benchmarks. Our scheme reduces the code size by over 10% and the energy consumed by over 40%. *A preliminary version of this paper has appeared in the International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD-2001), San Jose, CA, November 2001.     

Power optimization of core-based systems by address bus encoding

This paper presents a solution to the problem of reducing the power dissipated by a digital system containing an intellectual proprietary core processor which repeatedly executes a special-purpose program. The proposed method relies on a novel, application-dependent low-power address bus encoding scheme. The analysis of the execution traces of a given program allows an accurate computation of the correlations that may exist between blocks of bits in consecutive patterns; this information can be successfully exploited to determine an encoding which sensibly reduces the bus transition activity. Experimental results, obtained on a set of special-purpose applications, are very satisfactory; reductions of the bus activity up to 64.8% (41.8% on average) have been achieved over the original address streams. In addition, data concerning the quality and the performance of the automatically synthesized encoding/decoding circuits, as well as the results obtained for a realistic core-based design, indicate the practical usefulness of the proposed power optimization strategy     

Power Line Communication in Digitally Controlled DC–DC Converters Using Switching Frequency Modulation

This paper investigates power line communication (PLC) in digitally controlled high-frequency switched-mode power supplies in distributed architectures that share the same bus voltage. Communication between different DC-DC converters is obtained by using switching frequency modulation and by detecting the switching signal on the common supply bus voltage. In case of low power transmission, a small duty-cycle perturbation at half of switching frequency is added to enhance the energy of the transmitted signal. Each converter operates at three different switching frequencies: the first is associated with bit 1 transmission, the second is associated with bit 0 transmission, and the third is associated with no transmission state. In the proposed solution, there is no need for an additional power amplifier in order to inject the communication signal on the power lines, but the signal used for the PLC is inherently generated by the pulsewidth modulation of DC-DC converters. Even if aimed at a dedicated digital IC, the communication architecture has been implemented in field-programmable gate arrays. Simulation and experimental results on DC-DC synchronous buck converters confirm that the performance is achievable by the proposed PLC techniques.     

Memory accesses reordering for interconnect power reduction in sum-of-products computations

Techniques for interconnect power consumption reduction in realizations of sum-of-products computations are presented. The proposed techniques reorder the sequence of accesses of the coefficient and data memories to minimize power-costly address and data bus bit switching. The reordering problem is systematically formulated by mapping into the traveling salesman's problem (TSP) for both single and multiple functional unit architectures. The cost function driving the memory accesses reordering procedure explicitly takes into consideration the static information related to algorithms' coefficients and storage addresses and data-related dynamic information. Experimental results from several typical digital signal-processing algorithms prove that the proposed techniques lead to significant bus switching activity savings. The power consumption in the data paths is reduced in most cases as well.     

Efficient RC low-power bus encoding methods for crosstalk reduction

In on-chip buses, the RC crosstalk effect leads to serious problems, such as wire propagation delay and dynamic power dissipation. This paper presents two efficient bus-coding methods. The proposed methods simultaneously reduce more dynamic power dissipation and wire propagation delay than existing bus encoding methods. Our methods also reduce more total power consumption than other encoding methods. Simulation results show that the proposed method I reduces coupling activity by 26.7-38.2% and switching activity by 3.7%-7% on 8-bit to 32-bit data buses, respectively. The proposed method II reduces coupling activity by 27.5-39.1% and switching activity by 5.3-9% on 8-bit to 32-bit data buses, respectively. Both the proposed methods reduce dynamic power by 23.9-35.3% on 8-bit to 32-bit data buses and total propagation delay by up to 30.7-44.6% on 32-bit data buses, and eliminate the Type-4 coupling. Our methods also reduce total power consumption by 23.6-33.9%, 23.9-34.3%, and 24.1-34.6% on 8-bit to 32-bit data buses with the 0.18, 0.13, and 0.09 μm technologies, respectively.     

Power-optimal encoding for a DRAM address bus

This paper presents an irredundant encoding technique to minimize the switching activity on a multiplexed dynamic RAM (DRAM) address bus. The DRAM switching activity can be classified either as external (between two consecutive addresses) or internal (between the row and column addresses of the same address). For external switching activity in a sequential access pattern, we present a power-optimal encoding, named Pyramid code. Extensions of the basic code address different types of DRAM devices. The proposed codes reduce power dissipation on the memory bus by a factor of two or more     

EXODUS: inter-module bus-encoding scheme for system-on-a-chip

A novel bus encoding technique called EXODUS (EXclusive Or-xnor DUo Scheme) is presented which reduces the cross-coupling effect and switching activities in interconnects between macroblocks in systems-on-a-chip (SOCs). For 8 bit bus-lines, the proposed EXODUS scheme reduces the number of correlated switchings by 18% and reduces the worst case delay by 34% compared to the conventional bus-invert method. Because EXODUS uses an efficient encoding method, area and power penalties resulting from additional encoding/decoding circuitry can be avoided     

Simultaneously optimizing crosstalk and power for instruction bus coupling capacitance using wire pairing

The use of deep-submicrometer (DSM) technology increases the capacitive coupling between adjacent wires leading to severe crosstalk noise, which causes power dissipation and may also lead to malfunction of a chip. In this paper, we present a technique that reduces crosstalk noise on instruction buses. While previous research focuses primarily on address buses, little work can be applied efficiently to instruction buses. This is due to the complex transition behavior of instruction streams. Based on instruction sequence profiling, we exploit an architecture that encodes pairs of bus wires and permute them in order to optimize power and noise. A close to optimal architecture configuration is obtained using a genetic algorithm. Unlike previous bus encoding approaches, crosstalk reduction can be balanced with delay and area overhead. Moreover, if delay (or area) is most critical, our architecture can be tailored to add nearly no overhead to the design. For our experiments, we used instruction bus traces obtained from 12 SPEC2000 benchmark programs. The results show that our approach can reduce crosstalk up to 50.79% and power consumption up to 55% on instruction buses.     

低翻转率的SoC总线组合编码算法

为降低SoC总线功耗,避开现有总线编码技术在应用上的局限,提出了一种SoC总线编码算法。算法基于总线上IP可复用的观点,采用分组BI码和TO码各自的优点,在维持SoC总线功能基本不变的同时,减少数据线和地址线的电平翻转。最后的实验结果表明：组合编码算法可以将SoC总线的平均功耗下降7．41％,是一种有效且适用于SoC总线的低功耗算法。     

一种用于优化嵌入式FIR滤波器总线功耗的系数重排算法

嵌入式系统对低功耗的要求,使得低功耗设计成为VLSI的主要挑战之一.在嵌入式数字信号处理系统中,可通过降低系统总线的变化率来减少系统功耗.文章研究了一种滤波系数重排算法,用于降低嵌入式FIR滤波器的总线功耗.试验结果表明,该滤波系数重排算法可有效降低54%至69%的嵌入式FIR滤波器总线功耗.     

高性能PLC专用指令集处理器设计与仿真

该高性能PLC专用指令集处理器采用自主设计的PLC专用指令集,符合PLC指令特征,可减少该PLC专用指令集处理器执行的指令数,并采用32位RISC体系结构加快PLC程序的执行速度.该高性能PLC专用指令集处理器采用哈佛总线结构,寄存器组采用位编址模式,位处理器可加速PLC布尔运算,功能块单元可提高功能块指令执行的精度,并采用四级流水线提高PLC指令的执行速度.现已完成了该高性能PLC专用指令集处理器的系统功能仿真,经测试仿真结果正确.     

A coding framework for low-power address and data busses

This paper presents a source-coding framework for the design of coding schemes to reduce transition activity. These schemes are suited for high-capacitance buses where the extra power dissipation due to the encoder and decoder circuitry is offset by the power savings at the bus. In this framework, a data source (characterized in a probabilistic manner) is first passed through a decorrelating function f₁. Next, a variant of entropy coding function f₂ is employed, which reduces the transition activity. The framework is then employed to derive novel encoding schemes whereby practical forms for f₁ and f₂ are proposed. Simulation results with an encoding scheme for data buses indicate an average reduction in transition activity of 36%. This translates into a reduction in total power dissipation for bus capacitances greater than 14 pF/b in 1.2 μm CMOS technology. For a typical value for bus capacitance of 50 pF/b, there is a 36% reduction in power dissipation and eight times more power savings compared to existing schemes. Simulation results with an encoding scheme for instruction address buses indicate an average reduction in transition activity by a factor of 1.5 times over known coding schemes     

Partial bus-invert coding for power optimization ofapplication-specific systems

This paper presents two bus coding schemes for power optimization of application-specific systems: partial pus-invert coding and its extension to multiway partial bus-invert coding. In the first scheme, only a selected subgroup of bus lines is encoded to avoid unnecessary inversion of relatively inactive and/or uncorrelated bus lines which are not included in the subgroup. In the extended scheme, we partition a bus into multiple subbuses by clustering highly correlated bus lines and then encode each subbus independently. We describe a heuristic algorithm of partitioning a bus into subbuses for each encoding scheme. Experimental results for various examples indicate that both encoding schemes are highly efficient for application-specific systems     

Utilizing the effect of relative delay on energy dissipation in low-power on-chip buses

This paper presents an analysis of how the power dissipation of on-chip buses is affected by introducing a relative delay between the switching lines. Relative delay is shown to reduce the dissipated power of oppositely switching lines while causing a power penalty for similarly switching lines. A new low-power bus scheme that uses this effect is proposed and analyzed. As the introduced delay increases, the achieved power reduction increases while decreasing the bus throughput. Thus, a tradeoff between power reduction and throughput is required when selecting the imposed relative delay. The proposed low-power scheme, dynamic delayed line bus (DDL) scheme, led to a power reduction of up to 25%, 33%, and 42% when applied to data, address, and differential buses, respectively. Simple DDL hardware is designed and implemented in a 0.18-/spl mu/m TSMC CMOS technology and applied to a 4500-/spl mu/m long Metal4 bus. Circuit simulation results for different bus widths are presented.     

Wave Coupling Between Parallel Single-Mode and Multimode Optical Fibers

A directional coupler composed of a single-mode optical fiber and a multimode optical fiber has been considered to be capable of serving as a drop/insert device of a node in optical fiber Iocal area networks. It should couple almost all the local transmitter power into the multimode fiber bus, while removing only a small fraction of the optical power from the bus through the single-mode fiber. In this paper, the underlying fundamental process of the power transfer between two such optical fibers is analyzed utilizing a coupled-mode theory. Numerical calculations show that wave coupling among the guided modes on the fibers is quite complicated and that the wave amplitude variations along the propagation direction are different from the sinusoidal types resulting from two-mode coupling. The theoretical results do support the expected performance of the proposed couplers and provide an important guide for the design of such devices.