The Elusive Metric for Low-Power Architecture Research

Hsien-Hsin S. Lee, Joshua B. Fryman, A.U. Diril, Yuvraj Singh Dhillon · 2003

The Energy-Delay product or ED product was proposed as a metric to gauge design effectiveness. This metric is widely used in the area of low-power architecture research, however it is also often improperly used when reporting a new architecture design that addresses energy-performance effectiveness. In this paper, we discuss two common fallacies from the literature: (1) the way the ED product is calculated, and (2) issues of introducing additional hardware structures to reduce dynamic switching activities. When using the ED product without meticulous consideration, a seemingly energy-efficient design could turn out to be a more energy-consuming one. 1.

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