53236604
Compiling for memory emergency
17981801
Studying storage-recomputation tradeoffs in memory-constrained embedded processing
Fueled by an unprecedented desire for convenience and self-service, consumers are embracing embedded technology solutions that enhance their mobile lifestyles. Consequently, we witness an unprecedented proliferation of embedded/mobile applications. Most of the environments that execute these applications have severe power, performance, and memory space constraints that need to be accounted for. In particular, memory limitations can present serious challenges to embedded software designers. The current solutions to this problem include sophisticated packaging techniques and code optimizations for effective memory utilization. While the first solution is not scalable, the second one is restricted by intrinsic data dependences in the code that prevent code restructuring. In this paper, we explore an alternate approach for reducing memory space requirements of embedded applications. The idea is to re-compute the result of a code block (potentially multiple times) instead of storing it in memory and performing a memory operation whenever needed. The main benefit of this approach is that it reduces memory space requirements, that is, no memory space is reserved for storing the result of the code block in question.
7347899
Data compression for improving SPM behavior
Scratch-pad memories (SPMs) enable fast access to time-critical data. While prior research studied both static and dynamic SPM management strategies, not being able to keep all hot data (i.e., data with high reuse) in the SPM remains the biggest problem. This paper proposes data compression to increase the number of data blocks that can be kept in the SPM. Our experiments with several embedded applications show that our compression-based SPM management heuristic is very effective and outperforms prior static and dynamic SPM management approaches. We also present an ILP formulation of the problem, and show that the proposed heuristic generates competitive results with those obtained through ILP, while spending much less time in compilation.
17088807
Reducing NoC energy consumption through compiler-directed channel voltage scaling
While scalable NoC (Network-on-Chip) based communication architectures have clear advantages over long point-to-point communication channels, their power consumption can be very high. In contrast to most of the existing hardware-based efforts on NoC power optimization, this paper proposes a compiler-directed approach where the compiler decides the appropriate voltage/frequency levels to be used for each communication channel in the NoC. Our approach builds and operates on a novel graph based representation of a parallel program and has been implemented within an optimizing compiler and tested using 12 embedded benchmarks. Our experiments indicate that the proposed approach behaves better - from both performance and power perspectives - than a hardwarebased scheme and the energy savings it achieves are very close to the savings that could be obtained from an optimal, but hypothetical voltage/frequency scaling scheme.
2552667
An evaluation of code and data optimizations in the context of disk power reduction
Disk power management is becoming increasingly important in high-end server and cluster type of environments that execute data-intensive applications. While hardware-only approaches (e.g., low-power modes supported by current disks) are successful to a certain extent, one also needs to consider the software side to achieve further energy savings. This paper first demonstrates that conventional data locality oriented code transformations are not sufficient for minimizing disk power consumption. The reason is that these optimizations do not take into account how disk-resident array data are laid out on the disk system, and consequently, fail to increase idle periods of disks, which is the primary metric using which disk power can be reduced. Instead, we propose a disk layout aware application optimization strategy that uses both code restructuring and data layout optimization. Our experimental evaluation with several benchmark codes reveal that the proposed strategy is very successful in reducing disk energy consumption without performing much worse than a pure data locality oriented scheme, as far as execution cycles are concerned. The experiments also show that the benefits coming from our approach increase with the increased number of disks; i.e., it scales very well.
13530819
Exploiting last idle periods of links for network power management
Network power optimization is becoming increasingly important as the sizes of the data manipulated by parallel applications and the complexity of inter-processor data communications are continuously increasing. Several hardware-based schemes have been proposed in the past for reducing network power consumption, either by turning off unused communication links or by lowering voltage/frequency in links with low usage. While the prior research shows that these schemes can be effective in certain cases, they share the common drawback of not being able to predict the link active and idle times very accurately. This paper, instead, proposes a compiler-based scheme that determines the last use of communication links at each loop nest and inserts explicit link turn-off calls in the application source. Specifically, for each loop nest, the compiler inserts a turn-off call per communication link. Each turned-off link is reactivated upon the next access to it. We automated this approach within a parallelizing compiler and applied it to eight array-intensive embedded applications.
13165468
A note on fragile graphs
In this note, we show that every graph on n vertices and at most 2n - 4 edges contains a vertex-cut S which is also an independent set of G. The result is best possible and answers a question proposed by Caro in the affirmative.
13201367
Generalized Diameters of the Mesh of Trees
Abstract
The mesh of trees, which owns two favorable properties, small diameter and large bisection,
is known as the fastest network when considered in terms of speed. In this paper we show that
the wide diameter, fault diameter and Rabin number, which are three generalizations of diameter,
of a two-dimensional 2n×2n mesh of trees are equal to 5n + 1.


13046770
Local leader election, signal strength aware flooding, and routeless routing
We have identified a fundamental operator in wireless networks that we named the local leader election in which the goal is to select a node in a spatially close neighborhood. We present a simple and efficient solution to the local leader election problem by making use of both: (i) implicit synchronization points, commonly observable by all nodes in the same neighborhood, and (ii) the prioritized backoff delay, dependent on the desired probability of each node becoming a leader. We then show that both flooding and routing are instances of the local leader election problem, so our general solution naturally applies. By relating the backoff delay to the signal strength of the received packet, we have designed a variant of flooding named signal strength aware flooding (SSAF) that can improve its efficiency. By using a different metric to derive the backoff delay, we have designed a new generation wireless routing protocol, that we named the routeless routing protocol that possesses several interesting properties.
23991617
Ramsey Problems With Bounded Degree Spread
21143930
An I/O Optimal and Scalable Skyline Query Algorithm
Given a set of d-dimensional points, skyline query returns the points that are not dominated by any other point on all dimensions. Currently, BBS (branch-and-bound skyline) is the most efficient skyline processing method over static data in a centralized setting. Although BBS has some desirable features (e.g., I/O optimal and flexibility), it requires large main-memory consumption. In this paper, we present an improved skyline computation algorithm based on best-first nearest neighbor search, called IBBS, which captures the optimal I/O and less memory space (i.e., IBBS visits and stores only those entries that contribute to the final skyline). Its core enables several effective pruning strategies to discard non-qualifying entries. Extensive experimental evaluations show that IBBS outperforms BBS in both scalability and efficiency for most cases, especially in low dimensions.