Title:
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A fully parameterizable low power design of vector fused multiply-add using active clock-gating techniques
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Author:
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Ratkovic, Ivan; Palomar, Oscar; Stanic, Milan; Unsal, Osman Sabri; Cristal Kestelman, Adrián; Valero Cortés, Mateo
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Other authors:
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Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament d'Arquitectura de Computadors; Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. CAP - Grup de Computació d'Altes Prestacions |
Abstract:
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The need for power-efficiency is driving a rethink of design decisions in processor architectures. While vector processors succeeded in the high-performance market in the past, they need a re-tailoring for the mobile market that they are entering now. Floating point fused multiply-add, being a power consuming functional unit, deserves special attention. Although clock-gating is a well-known method to reduce switching power in synchronous designs, there are unexplored opportunities for its application to vector processors, especially when considering active operating mode. In this research, we comprehensively identify, propose, and evaluate the most suitable clock-gating techniques for vector fused multiply-add units (VFU). These techniques ensure power savings without jeopardizing the timing. Using vector masking and vector multi-lane-aware clock-gating, we report power reductions of up to 52%, assuming active VFU operating at the peak performance. Among other findings, we observe that vector instruction-based clock-gating techniques achieve power savings for all vector floating-point instructions. We perform this research in a fully parameterizable and automated fashion using various tools at both architectural and circuit levels. |
Abstract:
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The authors would like to thank to Borivoje Nikolic, Brian Richards, and Yunsup Lee for their useful advises and fruitful discussions. The research leading to these results has received funding from the RoMoL ERC Advanced Grant GA no 321253 and is supported in part by the European Union (FEDER funds) under contract TIN2015-65316-P. Ivan Ratkovic is supported
by a FPU research grant from the Spanish MECD. |
Abstract:
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Peer Reviewed |
Subject(s):
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-Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica::Electrònica de potència -Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Hardware -Power electronics -Computers -Arithmetic and datapath circuits -Power and energy -Methodologies for EDA -Single instruction -Multiple data -Electrònica de potència -Ordinadors |
Rights:
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Document type:
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Article - Published version Conference Object |
Published by:
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Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
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