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Exploring energy efficient state retention in transiently-powered computing systems

Exploring energy efficient state retention in transiently-powered computing systems
Exploring energy efficient state retention in transiently-powered computing systems
Batteries have traditionally been used to power embedded electronic devices. However, requirements such as a long lifetime, low cost, and weight, pose significant challenges to battery-powered systems. Energy harvesting offers the potential for embedded systems to operate without batteries. Nonetheless, harvesting has been traditionally coupled with large energy buffers such as supercapacitors to tackle the instability of the source. Transiently-powered computing systems enable computation to be sustained despite the source
variability, without the need for additional energy storage. To make this feasible, the system state (e.g. registers and RAM) needs to be saved to Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) before a power outage, and restored once power is available again. Existing transient systems save the entire state of the system upon power failure and do not consider the properties of different NVM technologies, leading into a sub-optimal state retention process. As a consequence, the time and energy spent towards useful computation are decreased significantly, affecting the forward progress that the system can achieve. The aim of this research is to introduce novel methods to reduce the time and energy overhead of the state retention process, exploring solutions both in the software and hardware domain.
Verykios, Theodoros D.
fc203333-af9c-48e6-b7d6-f22d8cf60636
Balsamo, Domenico
fa2dc20a-e3da-4d74-9070-9c61c6a471ba
Merrett, Geoff V.
89b3a696-41de-44c3-89aa-b0aa29f54020
Verykios, Theodoros D.
fc203333-af9c-48e6-b7d6-f22d8cf60636
Balsamo, Domenico
fa2dc20a-e3da-4d74-9070-9c61c6a471ba
Merrett, Geoff V.
89b3a696-41de-44c3-89aa-b0aa29f54020

Verykios, Theodoros D., Balsamo, Domenico and Merrett, Geoff V. (2017) Exploring energy efficient state retention in transiently-powered computing systems. IDEA League Doctoral School on Transiently Powered Computing, TU Delft, Delft, Netherlands. 08 - 10 Nov 2017.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

Batteries have traditionally been used to power embedded electronic devices. However, requirements such as a long lifetime, low cost, and weight, pose significant challenges to battery-powered systems. Energy harvesting offers the potential for embedded systems to operate without batteries. Nonetheless, harvesting has been traditionally coupled with large energy buffers such as supercapacitors to tackle the instability of the source. Transiently-powered computing systems enable computation to be sustained despite the source
variability, without the need for additional energy storage. To make this feasible, the system state (e.g. registers and RAM) needs to be saved to Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) before a power outage, and restored once power is available again. Existing transient systems save the entire state of the system upon power failure and do not consider the properties of different NVM technologies, leading into a sub-optimal state retention process. As a consequence, the time and energy spent towards useful computation are decreased significantly, affecting the forward progress that the system can achieve. The aim of this research is to introduce novel methods to reduce the time and energy overhead of the state retention process, exploring solutions both in the software and hardware domain.

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TPC2017 Final TDV - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Published date: 2017
Venue - Dates: IDEA League Doctoral School on Transiently Powered Computing, TU Delft, Delft, Netherlands, 2017-11-08 - 2017-11-10

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 414786
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/414786
PURE UUID: ab5475fb-3199-4090-b82d-5ac14b99a7de
ORCID for Geoff V. Merrett: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4980-3894

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Oct 2017 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:48

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Contributors

Author: Theodoros D. Verykios
Author: Domenico Balsamo
Author: Geoff V. Merrett ORCID iD

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