Energy Aware Computing - 2010/2011

Lecturer: Aristides Efthymiou

This page is constantly under construction. This is a predicted timetable of lectures which includes last year's slides. As the course progresses, the teaching material will be updated. By the end of the semester, the page will provide an accurate record of the whole course.

The course descriptors Inf4 MSc outline the syllabus, activities and course prerequisites.

Lectures are in
Tuesdays at 14.00-14.50 in FH 1.B09
Fridays at 14.00-14.50 in FH 1.B09,

There are no tutorials for EAC. For individual help on course content it's best to catch me after the lecture and/or send me an email.

A related resources web page is now available.

Anouncements

This course assumes that you are familiar with the organisation of a modern, super-scalar processor. You can refresh your memory by reading this paper, or, better, re-visit the computer architecture textbook by Patterson and Hennessy.
A local copy of the architectural simulator (hot leakage/wattch/simplescalar) is available for download.
You can find traces of benchmarks here. Each is around 10M bytes.
The stand-alone cacti tool is here.

Coursework

Assignment 1a (All Students): Model a filter-cache in Simplescalar/Wattch.
Issued: Tue 21/9
Deadline: Thu 14/10 4pm.
Worth: 5% of course marks
Assignment 1b (All Students): Implement one energy-saving method from the list available here.
Issued: Tue 21/9
Deadline: Fri 12/11 4pm.
Worth: 45%(UG4)/35%(MSc) of course marks
Assignment 2 (MSc Students only): Literature review
Issued: Fri 12/11
Deadline: 4pm Fri 3/12
Worth: 10% of course marks

Reading material

S. Kaxiras, M. Martonosi, Computer Architecture Techniques for Power-Efficiency, Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture. Morgan&Claypool publishers.
Available for free download from the above link (from machines on Edinburgh University network).

The book follows a different order of presentation but covers most of the course material.

Also see notes, links next to each lecture in the schedule below.

Schedule

Wk	Date	Lecture Topic	Reading	Coursework
1	21/9	Introduction and Overview Slides 2upbw		Coursework 1a Coursework 1b
1	24/9	CMOS technology Slides 2upbw	Chapter 1 of the book Wikipedia entry for CMOS
2	28/9	Modelling for power/energy Slides 2upbw	Chapter 2 of the book
2	1/10	Simplescalar workshop #1 - OoO Processors Slides 2upbw
3	5/10	Simplescalar workshop #2 Slides 2upbw	Also look here for excellent, detailed information on simplescalar (MS powerpoint).
3	8/10	Circuit level techniques Slides 2upbw	Read this paper
4	12/10	Micro-architecture level techniques Slides 2upbw	Sections 4.2, 4.3, 4.12 of the book
4	15/10	Dynamic u-arch techniques in the processor core Slides 2upbw	Sections 4.5-4.7, 4.11 of the book	Coursework 1a deadline (Thursday 14)
5	19/10	Memory structures and caches Slides
5	22/10	Power-aware caches Slides 2up bw	Sections 4.4, 4.8, 4.9 of the book
6	26/10	Lecture slot available.
6	29/10	Lecture slot available.
Wk	Date	Lecture Topic	Reading	Coursework
7	2/11	Leakage power Slides 2up bw	Chapter 5 of the book
7	5/11	Dynamic power management and DVFS Slides 2up-bw	Sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.4 of the book
8	9/11	Software-level techniques Slides	Section 3.3 of the book
8	12/11	No lecture - Project due today!		Coursework 1b deadline Coursework 2
9	16/11	Better than worst case computing Slides	Section 3.5 of the book Read these papers
9	19/11	Self-timed systems Slides
10	23/11	Project demos
10	26/11	Project demos
11	30/11	empty
11	3/12	empty		Coursework 2 deadline

Paper readings:

Circuit level techniques

A. Chandrakasan and R. Brodersen, Minimizing Power Consumption in Digital CMOS Circuits, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 83, iss. 4, pp. 498-523, 1995

Better than worst case computing

A. K. Uht, Going beyond worst-case specs with TEAtime IEEE Computer, 37(3), pp. 51-56, March 2004
Shih-Lien Lu, Speeding up processing with approximation circuits IEEE Computer, 37(3), pp. 67-73, March 2004

The web page is maintained by the course lecturer: Aris Efthymiou

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