ECE 697K
Low Power Architectures
Seminar Course
University of
Massachusetts Amherst
Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Instructor: Csaba Andras Moritz, Professor
email: andras@ecs.umass.edu, phone: 413-545-2442Office: room KEB-309H
Secretary: June Daehler, phone: 413-545 3621
Office hours: TBD and by appointment
Class Time: TTh 11:15
Place: ELAB 303
Course Abstract:
Power and energy consumption has become a critical design goal in computer architectures. Power/energy reduction techniques (especially that do not affect performance adversely) are widely recognized as representing the next phase in the advancement of microprocessors. This course addresses some of the recent developments in both industry and academia related to energy and power management and emphasizes on the challenges in future generation designs. Power/energy reduction is important in both the embedded and general purpose domains. In the embedded domain many are battery driven and thus require low power and energy consumption. Emerging applications that merge wireless and Internet capabilities further underline this trend. In the general purpose domain the power/energy consumption affects packaging and heating related costs and impacts on the environment. The course will cover both memory systems and microprocessor cores. We will discuss techniques to reduce both dynamic and static (leakage) power consumption and touch system layers such as circuits, microarchitecture, and compilation.
(3 credits)
Projects/Exams/Grading:
This is a research oriented seminar course. Its focus is to prepare students to do research in this area. Students are expected to give one or more 40 minutes presentations of research papers and to participate actively in informal (brainstorming style) research discussions. Each student is required to write one "wild idea" paper ( not more than two pages) related to one promising technique/idea he/she comes up with. In addition, there is going to be a group effort that requires writing a survey article related to low-power techniques. Project is optional and TBD. One pop quiz can be expected. Grading: TBD
Prerequisites: graduate level knowledge of computer architecture and good understanding of compiler and VLSI implementation issues in microprocessors.
Materials from:
- research papers
- J. P. Shen and Mikko H. Lipasti, Modern Processor Design
- Jurij Silc, Borut Robic, Theo Ungerer, Processor Architecture
- Muchnik, Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation
- Chandrakasan et al, Design of High-Performance Microprocessor Circuits
Last updated: Aug 26, 2000
andras@ecs.umass.edu