Reflex: using low-power processors in smartphones without knowing them

To accomplish frequent, simple tasks with high efficiency, it is necessary to leverage low-power, microcontroller-like processors that are increasingly available on mobile systems. However, existing solutions require developers to directly program the lowpower processors and carefully manage inter-processor communication. We present Reflex, a suite of compiler and runtime techniques that significantly lower the barrier for developers to leverage such low-power processors. The heart of Reflex is a software Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) that enables shared memory objects with release consistency among code running on loosely coupled processors. In order to achieve high energy efficiency without sacrificing performance much, the Reflex DSM leverages (i) extreme architectural asymmetry between low-power processors and powerful central processors, (ii) aggressive compile-time optimization, and (iii) a minimalist runtime that supports efficient message passing and event-driven execution. ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2012
• Where: ASPLOS
• Authors: Felix Xiaozhu Lin, Zhen Wang, Robert LiKamWa, Lin Zhong
• Keywords: ASPLOS 2012, Operating Systems Organization, Power Processors, Programming Languages, System Power Consumption