Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chips

2.3. Energy-Aware Memory System Design

In an MPSoC system, memories constitute a significant portion of the overall chip resources, as there are various memory structures ranging from private memories for individual processors to large shared cache structures. Energy is expended in these memories due to data accesses (reads/writes), coherence activity required to maintain consistency between shared data, and leakage energy expended in just storing the data.

2.3.1. Reducing Active Energy

Many techniques have been proposed in the past to reduce cache energy consumption. Among these are partitioning large caches into smaller structures to reduce the dynamic energy [15,16] and the use of a memory hierarchy that attempts to capture most accesses ...