Thermal modeling and management of DRAM memory systems

With increasing speed and power density, high-performance memories, including FB-DIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) and DDR2 DRAM, now begin to require dynamic thermal management (DTM) as processors and hard drives did. The DTM of memories, nevertheless, is different in that it should take the processor performance and power consumption into consideration. Existing schemes have ignored that. In this study, we investigate a new approach that controls the memory thermal issues from the source generating memory activities – the processor. It will smooth the program execution when compared with shutting down memory abruptly, and therefore improve the overall system performance and power efficiency. For multicore systems, we propose two schemes called adaptive core gating and coordinated DVFS. The first scheme activates clock gating on selected processor cores and the second one scales down the frequency and voltage levels of processor cores when the memory is to be overheated. They can succe...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ISCA
• Authors: Jiang Lin, Hongzhong Zheng, Zhichun Zhu, Howard David, Zhao Zhang
• Keywords: Adaptive Core Gating, Hardware, ISCA 2007, Memory Activities, Thermal