Webpage-based benchmarks for mobile device design

Abstract

Computers are currently designed using benchmarks and specification styles that are decades old, even as computers are being used in fundamentally different ways. By investigating the content, structure and usage of webpages, we observe that webpages represent a fundamentally different standard for performance evaluation of computers. We gathered data and modeled typical webpage content in order to characterize what is becoming a uniquely important design space. We then included this data in a set of simulations that also included models of a variety of scheduler types and heterogeneous multiprocessor architectures. To this, we proposed usage patterns that we believe typify the way people access the Internet on mobile devices. Considering only modern-day content in webpages, we found that specialized architectures can improve performance up to 70% over a homogeneous multiprocessor composed of general purpose processors with 25% additional improvement over the next best architecture when individual user preferences are also considered. This trend will increase as webpages become more differentiated in purpose and more complex in content. A new model of performance evaluation of computing must be developed, based upon webpage content and webpage access patterns.