Energy-efficient phase-based cache tuning for multimedia applications in embedded systems

The proliferation of multimedia applications in embedded systems has led to a research focus on optimizing the energy consumption of these applications without significantly degrading the execution time and adhering to data processing deadline constraints. To maximize optimization potential, phase-based tuning methodologies specialize system configurations to different phases of application execution with respect to design constraints. Multimedia applications are ideal candidates for phase-based tuning since these applications exhibit variable execution characteristics. In this paper, we propose a phase-based tuning methodology for multimedia applications that leverages application characteristics to determine the best cache configurations for different phases of execution. Results reveal that phase-based tuning for multimedia applications determines cache configurations within 1% of the optimal on average and yields an average energy delay product savings of 29%.