Leakage-Aware Temperature-Constrained Real-Time SchedulingThis project is motivated by two recently emerged challenges in design of computer systems---the escalating temperature and the dramatically increased leakage power consumption in IC circuits---that threaten to handicap future generations of computing systems. The temperature of a computer chip increases in tandem with rapidly growing power consumption. At the same time, high chip temperature drastically increases leakage power, which is becoming a major component in the overall power consumption in todays sub-micron IC circuits. This positive feedback loop between temperature and leakage exacerbates the design challenge, not only the power/energy minimization problem but also the temperature-constrained design problem. This research seeks to address the temperature and power/energy consumption problem using real-time scheduling techniques, with a focus on the interplay between temperature and leakage power consumption. This project studies system-level thermal models that can capture the temperature-leakage interdependency with high accuracy while remaining simple enough for formal system level analysis. The research seeks to develop and validate novel and effective real-time scheduling techniques under both single and multiple processor platforms.This research has the potential for significant societal impact, mitigating a critical barrier to the evolution of real-time embedded computing systems to sub-micron scales. This research yields techniques for reducing energy consumption and enhancing reliability and lifetime of computer systems (hence reducing cost and increasing dependability). The system-level models and techniques developed in this project will not only benefit computer scientists and researchers but those from many other disciplines and research domains as well. Furthermore, this project provides abundant research topics and learning opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students. The project seeks to broaden opportunities for participation in research through outreach to recruit students from groups currently underrepresented in this field.
