HotLeakage is  a software model of leakage---based on BSIM3 technology data---that is publicly available on the web, computationally very simple, can easily be integrated into popular power-performance simulators like Wattch, can easily be extended to accommodate other technology models, and can easily be used to model leakage in a variety of structures (not just caches, which have been the focus of a lot of prior work). It extends the Butts-Sohi model and corrects several important sources of inaccuracy. We call our model HotLeakage, because it includes the exponential effects of temperature on leakage. Temperature effects are important, because leakage current depends exponentially on temperature, and future operating temperatures may exceed 100 degree C. In fact, HotLeakage also includes the heretofore unmodeled effects of supply voltage, gate leakage, and parameter variations.

HotLeakage has circuit-level accuracy because the parameters are derived from transistor-level simulation (Cadence tools). Yet like the Butts and Sohi model, simplicity is maintained by deriving the necessary circuit-level model for individual cells, like memory cells or decoder circuits, and then taking advantage of the regularity of major structures to develop abstract models that can be expressed in simple formulas similar to the Butts-Sohi model. All necessary components of this formula are encapsulated in lookup tables.
 

 PEOPLE :       Kevin Skadron    Mircea Stan   Yan Zhang   Dharmesh Parikh    Yingmin Li    Karthik Sankaranarayanan

For questions, please subscribe to the HotSpot mailing list..