Thermal-Aware Compilation for Register Window-Based Embedded Processors

Authors: Aly, Sabry ; Mostafa, Mohamed ; Rodrigo, Ayala ; Luis, José ; Atienza Alonso, David.
Accepted in: IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, vol. 2, num. 4, 2010, p. 213-217, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2010. ISSN: 1943-0663.
The development of compiler-based mechanisms to optimize the thermal profile of large register files to improve the processor reliability has become an important issue. Thermal hotspots have been known to cause severe reliability issues, while the thermal profile of the devices is also related to the leakage power consumption and the cooling cost. Register window-based architectures provide a relatively large register files. However, such large register files are not designed or utilized for thermal balancing or reliability enhancement. In this paper, we propose a compilation flow that utilizes the register windows to reduce optimize the thermal profile and to reduce the hotspots. As a result, the thermal profile and reliability of the device is clearly improved. Simulation results show that the proposed flow achieves up to 91% reduction of hotspots and 11% reduction of the peak temperature in embedded processors.