低功耗动态可配置Cache设计

在现代的微处理器设计中,Cache(高速缓冲存储器)在决定整个微处理器的性能方面起着关键性的作用。同时,作为微处理器的关键部件,它消耗的功耗是微处理器的主要功耗之一。尤其是在嵌入式领域,研究表明Cache所消耗的能量可以占到整个微处理器的50%。因此,降低Cache的功耗可以有效地降低处理器的整体功耗。以"龙腾R2"微处理器为研究对象,以低功耗为出发点,介绍了一种动态可配置Cache的设计方法。实验表明,该低功耗可配置Cache有效的地降低了微处理器的整体功耗,且提高了性能。

Design of Low Power Dynamically Configurable Cache

On designing modern microprocessor,Cache plays a key role in determining the performance of an entire microprocessor.Meanwhile,as a critical component of a microprocessor,Cache's power dissipation is one of the largest dissipation of a microprocessor.Especially in the embedded field,some researches show that Cache's power dissipation accounts for 50% of the total dissipation of a microprocessor.Therefore,the total dissipation can be largely lowered by reducing Cache's dissipation.Studying the "longtium R2" Microprocessor,this paper introduces a novel way of designing dynamically configurable Cache,which can reduce power dissipation.Experiments illustrate that dynamically configurable CACHE effectively reduces the total dissipation of the whole microprocessor and improves the performance.