Dithering-Based Power and Thermal Management on FPGA-Based Multi-core Embedded Systems

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the design of a heterogeneous island-based network-on-chip to achieve a power-and thermal-aware coherent system. To this end we utilize different management techniques which employ dynamic frequency scaling circuitry and continuous monitoring through power and temperature sensors per node for dynamic control of workloads. Both monitoring functions and response mechanisms can be engaged in distributed and in centralized mode. The developed multi-core architecture on a multi-FPGA platform employes a hierarchical memory model and supports a multi-threaded general-purpose processor together with many soft-core accelerators per node with independent dynamic frequency scaling per core. Utilizing on-line monitoring we propose a novel response mechanism using a distributed power management algorithm to evenly reduce and normalize power transients.