Managing Power Consumption in Networks on Chip

Systems on a chip (SOCs) are rapidly evolving into larger networks on achip (NOCs). This work presents a new methodology for managingpower consumption for NOCs. Power management problem isformulated using closed-loop control concepts, with the estimator trackingchanges in the system parameters and recalculating the new powermanagement policy accordingly. Dynamic voltage scaling and localpower management are formulated in the node-centric manner, whereeach core has its local power manager that determines units power states.The local power manager's interaction with the other system coresregarding the power and the QoS needs enables network-centric powermanagement. The new methodology for power management of NOCs istested on a system consisting of four satellite units, each with the localpower manager capable of both node and network centric powermanagement. The results show large savings in power with good QoS.