Energy Efficiency of Microarchitectures in High-Performance Microprocessors

Reducing energy consumption and enhancing energy efficiency are pivotal to further progress of microprocessors. It is not enough to just depend on the advancement of the technology to reduce energy consumption of microprocessors. The energy optimization methods in circuit level and gate level have been investigated widely. The methods in microarchitecture level, compilation level and application level are more effective, but it is a fact that lacking of effective metrics to judge what kinds of microarchitectures are more energy-efficient. So this paper presents a methodology to estimate energy efficiency of microarchitectures, and at the same time gives a metric Metric arch as energy efficiency metric of microarchitectures. Authors have investigated the status of energy-efficient microarchitectures in high-performance microprocessors through the proposed metric and estimated some of the newest microarchitectures. Finally authors conclude that energy efficiency of microarchitectures in high-performance microprocessor has been declining, the technology has been the main factor which has led to advancement of system energy efficiency, and much more energy-efficient microarchitectures will stand for the future in high-performance microprocessors.