ABSTRACT
Software can have a large impact on the average power, peak power, energy dissipation, and instantaneous power of the embedded processor core. In turn, average power is directly related to battery lifetimes. Peak power constrains the thermal design of the embedded system. In addition, the peak power affects the power supply design and instantaneous power can affect reliability and security. Today, low-power dissipation is critical for wireless communication devices, which demand long battery lifetimes, high reliability, low thermal dissipation, and high security. This chapter discusses the relationship between software and power. First, instruction-level models for predicting the average power and predicting the average energy of applications executing on an embedded processor are reviewed. An example of an instruction-level model combined with statistics is presented for a digital signal processing (DSP) processor. Next, recent research in instruction-level models for predicting instantaneous power of a processor core is discussed. Finally, new emerging applications of instantaneous power design utilizing software, specifically in security, are addressed.
