Power and energy

Introduction

In today's energy-sustained world, energy is considered the most significant design aspect in every computer
class design. Two main challenges arise from this aspect:

1. Power supply: Power must be efficiently transported in and distributed around the chip.

2. Cooling solutions: The dissipation of power as heat must be effectively managed and removed.

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 Power and energy
System architect perspective

Question: In the context of performance, power, and energy, what considerations should a system architect
take into account?

• The maximum power required by a processor

The current drawn by the processor must fall within the current range provided by the power-supply
system.
Example of solution: To address the variation in power consumption with high peak currents (peak
workload), Modern processors are designed to slow down and regulate voltage within a wider margin.
However, this solution causes a decrease in the performance.

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 Power and energy
System architect perspective

• Thermal Design Power (TDP)

o TDP is a metric that quantifies the maximum amount of heat generated thought power consumption
by a computer component under normal operating conditions.
o Expressed in Watt
o Serves as a guideline for system designers to understand the amount of heat dissipation that needs
to be managed by the cooling system.
o A typical power supply for a system is typically sized to exceed the TDP, and a cooling system is
usually designed to match or exceed TDP.
o TDP is often 1.5 time lower than the peak power consumption and is higher than the average power
consumption

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 Power and energy
System architect perspective

o Example of solution:
When the thermal temperature nears the junction temperature limit, the circuitry decreases the clock
rate, leading to a reduction in power.

Should this approach prove ineffective, a secondary thermal overload safeguard is triggered to power
down the chip.

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 Power and energy
System architect perspective

• Energy and energy efficiency

o Power is energy per unit time: 1 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑡 = 1 𝑗𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑.
o Using energy as a metric is better since it is linked to a specific task and the time needed to
accomplish that task.
o The energy to complete a workload is equal to the average power times the execution time for the
workload.
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝑡𝑎𝑠𝑘 = 𝐴𝑣𝑔𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 × 𝑒𝑥𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑠𝑘

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 Power and energy
System architect perspective

Question:
To execution a specific task processor A needs 70% of the time needed by processor B. Considering
that Processor A have a 20% higher average power consumption than processor B, what is the energy
consumption of processor A?

Answer:
𝐴𝑣𝑔𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝐴 = 120% 𝐴𝑣𝑔𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝐵 = 1.2𝐴𝑣𝑔𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝐵
𝐸𝑥𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝐴 = 0.7 𝐸𝑥𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝐵
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝐴 = 𝐴𝑣𝑔𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝐴 × 𝐸𝑥𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝐴 = 1.2 × 0.7 × 𝐴𝑣𝑔𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝐵 × 𝐸𝑥𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝐵

𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝐴 = 0.84 × 𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝐵

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 Power and energy
System architect perspective

Conclusion:
Therefore, when assessing the efficiency of two processors for a specific task, it is more appropriate to
compare the energy consumption during the task execution rather than using power consumption.

But, when is power consumption a useful measure?

The main valid application is as a limitation, such as restricting an air-cooled chip to 100 W.

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 Power and energy
Energy and Power Within a Microprocessor

For CMOS chips, the energy consumption has been mostly occurring during the transistor switching, also
called dynamic energy. The energy required per transistor of pulse of the logic transition of 0 → 1 → 0 (𝑜𝑟 1 →
0 → 1) is given by:
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝑑𝑦𝑎𝑚ℏ𝑐 ∝ 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 × 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒 2

The energy of a single transition 0 → 1 (𝑜𝑟 1 → 0) is then:

1
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝑑𝑦𝑎𝑚ℏ𝑐 ∝ × 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 × 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒 2
2

The power is then given by the product of the 𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝑑𝑦𝑛𝑎𝑚ℏ𝑐 of a single transition multiplied by the frequency
of the transition:
1
𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑑𝑦𝑎𝑚ℏ𝑐 ∝ × 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 × 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒 2 × 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑠𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑑
2

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 Power and energy
Energy and Power Within a Microprocessor

Remarks:

• For a specific task, slowing the frequency reduces power, but not energy.
• The dynamic power and energy are reduced by lowering the voltage.
• The capacitive load consists in the number of transistors connected to an output and the technology (i.e.,
the capacitance of the wires and the transistors).
• The dynamic power is the primary source of power dissipation in CMOS, however, static power is also an
important issue because of leakage current flows, the static power is given by:

𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡ℏ𝑐 ∝ 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡ℏ𝑐 × 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒

• The static power is proportional to the number of devices.

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 Power and energy
Energy, power and performance enhancement
During the computer architecture evolution, the increase in the number of transistors and the frequency
has dominated the decrease in load capacitance and voltage, leading to an overall growth in power
consumption and energy.
Examples:

• First microprocessors consumed 1 watt.

• Intel Core i9-9900K 9th Gen consumes 95 watt (168.48 watt at full workload)
Consequences!?

• The limits of air cooling process are nearly reached.

• Decrease in the clock rates lead to a period of slow performance improvement range
• Distributing the power, removing the heat, and preventing hot spots have become increasingly difficult
challenges.
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 Power and energy
Methods for Improving Energy Efficiency
• Do nothing well: Consists in turn off the clock of inactive modules to save energy and dynamic power.
For example, if some cores are idle, their clocks are stopped.
• Dynamic voltage-frequency scaling (DVFS): Consists in scaling down the working voltage and/or
frequency to use lower power and energy. For example: energy saving mode in a laptop.
• Design for the typical case: design components with energy saving mode. For example: DRAM
designed with a low power mode, disks that have a mode that spins more slowly when unused to save
power However, you cannot access DRAMs or disks in these modes, so you must return to fully active
mode to read or write.

• Overclocking (Ex intel Turbo mode): consists in a chip running at a higher clock rate for a short time.
For example: For single-threaded code, the microprocessors can turn off all cores but one and run it
faster.
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 Power and energy
Methods for Improving Energy Efficiency
Remarks:
• In today microprocessor design, with so many transistors that they cannot all be turned
• on at the same time: dark silicon phenomenon.
• The importance of power and energy has lead to a new metric for evaluation: tasks per joule or
performance per watt rather than performance per 𝑚𝑚2 of silicon as in the past.

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 Power and energy
Methods for Improving Energy Efficiency

Comparison of the energy of arithmetic operations and energy cost of accesses to SRAM and DRAM
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