Inserção de Código DVFS-Aware em Sistemas de tempo real críticos

Abstract

Performance and energy consumption are directly related. To increase performance, the number of instructions per second to be executed must also be increased, in other words, processor frequency must be changed. The higher this value is, higher energy consumption also has to be. Likewise, by decreasing the number of instructions to be executed, energy consumption and performance are also reduced. So, exploring performance and energy relation is the key idea behind Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling – DVFS, technique. Applying DVFS in real time systems is not a trivial task. These system’s tasks are bounded to timing constraints in such a way that, if decreasing performance does not guarantee constraints, the system may totally fail. Thus, this work aims to gather two DVFS approaches in real time systems: intra and inter-tasks. The intra-task analyzes execution flow of a task and identify where the new instructions can be inserted to change supply voltage and frequency when the worst case path is not followed. On the other hand, the inter-task approach analyzes how long a task will wait due to interferences (e.g. preemption, shared resources), verifies system schedulability and defines a set of initial optimum frequencies in multi-task environment. The result is a new code with the same functionality as the original one, however with instructions to change voltage and frequency when taking into account a task interferences. Moreover, the experimental results show not only energy consumption was reduced, but also timing constraints were satisfied.