Memory-Access Aware DVFS for Network-on-Chip in CMPs

We present a new DVFS technique for network-on-chip (NoC) that adjusts the voltage/frequency scales of routers according to memory-access characteristics of application running on the CMP. The memory characteristics are periodically profiled, reflecting both resource-access density in the network and memory-access criticality for application performance. The network conducts per-router voltage/frequency tuning using the memory-access density information while it performs priority-based switch allocation to speed up critical packets and avoid starvation using the memory-criticality information. Compared to a latest per-router DVFS approach, benchmark experiments demonstrate that our memory-access characteristics aware DVFS technique achieves not only better power saving, energy-delay product, but also enhanced network and application performance.