SAVS: a self-adaptive variable supply-voltage technique for process- tolerant and power-efficient multi-issue superscalar proces

- Technology scaling and sub-wavelength optical lithography is associated with significant process variations. We propose a self-adaptive variable supply-voltage scaling (SAVS) technique for multi-issue out-of-order pipeline to improve parametric yield with minimal power dissipation. Our error-correction circuitry and recovery mechanism allow the proposed fault-tolerant pipeline to work at a dynamically tuned supply voltage with a very low error rate. Experiments on an 8-issue, out-of-order superscalar processor show that SAVS can achieve 93.3% yield with 8.66% total power reduction under a scaled VDD, compared to the same yield achieved by conventional microarchitecture. The increased execution time is negligible (0.014%).

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ASPDAC
• Authors: Hai Li, Yiran Chen, Kaushik Roy, Cheng-Kok Koh
• Keywords: ASPDAC 2006, Hardware, Multi-issue Out-of-order Pipeline, Parametric Yield, Self-adaptive Variable Supply-voltage