Low Power Embedded Software Optimization Using Symbolic Algebra

The market demand for portable multimedia applications has exploded in the recent years. Unfortunately, for such applications current compilers and software optimization methods often require of designers to do part of the optimization manually. Namely, the high-level arithmetic optimizations and the use of complex instructions are left to the designers' ingenuity. In this paper, we present a tool flow, OptAlg, that partially automates the optimization of power-intensive algorithmic constructs using symbolic algebra techniques combined with energy profiling. OptAlg is used to optimize and tune the algorithmic level description of an MPEG Layer III (MP3) audio decoder for the SmartBadge [2] portable embedded system. We show that our tool lowers the number of instructions and memory accesses necessary to run the MP3 code and thus lowers the system power consumption. The optimized MP3 audio decoder software meets real-time constraints on the SmartBadge system with low energy consump...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: DATE
• Authors: Armita Peymandoust, Tajana Simunic, Giovanni De Micheli
• Keywords: Audio Decoder, DATE 2002, Hardware, Power-intensive Algorithmic Constructs, Software Optimization Methods