Layer assignment techniques for low energy in multi-layered memory organisations

Nearly all platforms use a multi-layer memory hierarchy to bridge the enormous latency gap between the large off-chip memories and local register files. However, most of the previous work on HW or SW controlled techniques for layer assignment have been mainly focussed on performance. As a result, the intermediate layers have been assigned too large sizes, leading to energy inefficiency. In this paper, we present a technique that takes advantage of both the temporal locality and limited lifetime of the arrays of the application for minimum energy consumption under layer size constraints. A prototype tool has been developed and tested using two real-life applications of industrial relevance. Following this approach, we have been able to halve the energy consumed by the memory hierarchy for each of our drivers.