Power reduction for ASIPS: a case study

Application specific instruction set processors (ASIPs) are an excellent architecture for mixed control/data-flow oriented tasks with medium to low data rate and high complexity. The main advantage of ASIPs is the higher flexibility due to programmability compared to dedicated hardware. A drawback of this design style is an increase in power consumption. The current case study focuses on an ASIP design methodology considering the classical parameters computational performance and area as well as energy consumption simultaneously. Several ASIP power optimization options have been applied and evaluated: clock-gating, logic netlist restructuring, ISA optimization, instruction memory power reduction, and use of a dedicated coprocessor. These optimizations are demonstrated with the WORE (ISS-core) ASIP for DVB-T acquisition and tracking algorithms. The results reveal a potential of about one order of magnitude in energy savings for these optimizations.