Recent work has shown that monolithic integration of voltage regulators will be feasible in the near future, enabling reduced system cost and the potential for fine-grain voltage scaling (FGVS). More specifically, on-chip switched-capacitor regulators appear to offer an attractive trade-off in terms of integration complexity, power density, power efficiency, and response time. In this paper, we use architecture-level modeling to explore a new dynamic voltage/frequency scaling controller called the fine-grain synchronization controller (FG-SYNC+). FG-SYNC+ enables improved performance and energy efficiency at similar average power for multithreaded applications with activity imbalance. We then use circuit-level modeling to explore various approaches to organizing on-chip voltage regulation, including a new approach called reconfigurable power distribution networks (RPDNs). RPDNs allow one regulator to "borrow" energy storage from regulators associated with underutilized cores resulting in improved area/power efficiency and faster response times. We evaluate FG-SYNC+ and RPDN using a vertically integrated research methodology, and our results demonstrate a 10-50% performance and 10-70% energy-efficiency improvement on the majority of the applications studied compared to no FGVS, yet RPDN uses 40% less area compared to a more traditional per-core regulation scheme.
Impulse Radios within communication networks using Pulse Coupled Oscillator (PCO) global synchronization can be efficiently duty cycled for significant power savings. In this paper we utilize the emergent dynamical behavior in the PCO network to enable a simple event communication scheme particular to this type of network. In this scheme, each coupled radio node accesses the channel by simply changing its pulse repetition frequency in response to an event sensed by its sensor. This forces the network to a new, higher operating frequency, which can be locally measured at every node in the network to communicate occurrence of an event in the network. In this paper we show how this synchronization occurs and how it is ideally suited for low power operation. The proposed event propagation scheme enables a node to broadcast information about an event to an entire network in a simple fashion without the need of any datapacket formation or complex MAC/Routing protocols. We show that resynchronization and recovery of the network happens almost immediately. The latency involved corresponds to the distance-delay (due to finite speed of light) plus a very small circuit delay of (4-5ns) per hop related to detection of impulses.
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