Dynamic power management of voltage-frequency island partitioned Networks-on-Chip using Intel´s Single-chip Cloud Computer

Continuous technology scaling has enabled the integration of multiple cores on the same chip. To overcome the disadvantages of buses, the Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture has been proposed as a new communication paradigm. To further mitigate the tradeoff between performance and power consumption, dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) became the de facto approach in multi-core design. DVFS-based NoC communication was implemented in Intel´s most recent Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC). Using the SCC we demonstrate a power management algorithm that runs in real time and dynamically adjusts the performance of the islands to reduce power consumption while maintaining the same level of performance.