Communications of the ACM

ACM TechNews

Increasing Processor Efficiency By 'shutting Off the Lights'

By Harvard University
March 3, 2011
Comments (1)

Harvard University's Wonyoung Kim has developed an on-chip, multi-core voltage regulator (MCVR) that could reduce semiconductor power requirements and lead to more energy-efficient smartphones, laptops, and data centers.

Kim discovered that fine-grain voltage control was theoretically possible in 2008, and at the recent Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' International Solid-State Circuits Conference he demonstrated that physically implementing the MCVR in hardware was feasible. The MCVR is a DC-DC converter that can change a 2.4-volt input into a power output as low as 0.4 volts. Kim's MCVR is equipped with an algorithm that identifies which parts of the processor are not being used and cuts their power, which reduces the system's energy load.

"Integrating the voltage regulator along with the [integrated circuit] chip to which it supplies power not only reduces broad-level size and cost, but also opens up exciting opportunities to improve energy efficiency," says Harvard's Gu-Yeon Wei.

From Harvard University
View Full Article

Abstracts Copyright © 2011  Information Inc. , Bethesda, Maryland, USA

---

Comments

---

Displaying 1 comment