降低高性能微处理器功耗技术与方法研究

The Research of the Technology and Method Reducing Power Consumption in High－performance Microprocessors

功耗已经成为高性能微处理器设计的最大挑战之一。每一代CPU的速度和复杂度的迅速增长超出降低电压和减小特征尺寸所带来的益处。这就需要在满足所有其它设计约束的同时，不断地提出新方法来降低功耗。文章首先概述了CPU的功耗问题，并描述了低功耗设计的主要趋势。其次，主要描述了高性能 CPU的功耗源和系统问题，以及过去实际设计中所采用的一些技术。最后，阐明了未来的一些研究领域。

Power consumption has become one of the biggest challenges in high performance microprocessor design．The rapid increase in the complexity and speed of each new CPU generation is outstripping the benefits of voltage reduction and feature size scaling．It is continuously challenged to come with innovative ways to reduce power，while trying to meet all the other constraints imposed on the design．This paper presents an overview of the issue related to power consumption of the CPUs．The main trends of the design for lower power are described．Techniques that have been tried on real designs in the past are described．In addition，areas of the research in the future also pointed out．