Is DarkSilicon Useful @ (DAC 2012)
Table of Contents
paper link: https://www.bsg.ai/papers/taylor_dark_silicon_horsemen_dac_2012.pdf
Dennard Scaling
Percentage of a silicon chip that can switch at full frequency is dropping exponentially with each process generation (2x per generation).
Silicon area becomes an exponentially cheaper resource relative to power and energy consumption. This shift drives new architectural techniques that spend area to buy energy efficiency.
FO4 delays
Fan out = Cload / Cin
Some Potential Approaches
Spoilers: Non of them is ideal.
Shrinking Silicon
Dim Silicon
Dim Silicon: general-purpose logic that is typically underclocked or used infrequently to meet the power budget, techniques include:
- Scaling up amount of cache logic.
- employ near-threshold voltage (NTV) processor designs.
- Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Array (CGRA)-based architecture that attempt to reduce energy by reducing multiplexing or processor datapaths.
Specialized co-processor
- Implement a host of specialized co-processors, each of which is either much faster or more energy-efficient.
New Classes of Circuits
- Tunnel Field Effect Transistors
- Nano-Electro-Mechanical switches