research-article

Flikker: saving DRAM refresh-power through critical data partitioning

Authors:

Karthik Pattabiraman,

Thomas Moscibroda,

Benjamin G. ZornAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 46, Issue 3

Pages 213 - 224

https://doi.org/10.1145/1961296.1950391

Published: 05 March 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Energy has become a first-class design constraint in computer systems. Memory is a significant contributor to total system power. This paper introduces Flikker, an application-level technique to reduce refresh power in DRAM memories. Flikker enables developers to specify critical and non-critical data in programs and the runtime system allocates this data in separate parts of memory. The portion of memory containing critical data is refreshed at the regular refresh-rate, while the portion containing non-critical data is refreshed at substantially lower rates. This partitioning saves energy at the cost of a modest increase in data corruption in the non-critical data. Flikker thus exposes and leverages an interesting trade-off between energy consumption and hardware correctness. We show that many applications are naturally tolerant to errors in the non-critical data, and in the vast majority of cases, the errors have little or no impact on the application's final outcome. We also find that Flikker can save between 20-25% of the power consumed by the memory sub-system in a mobile device, with negligible impact on application performance. Flikker is implemented almost entirely in software, and requires only modest changes to the hardware.

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Cited By

Li SJin HGao YWang YDai SXu YCheng L(2024)Approximate data mapping in refresh-free DRAM for energy-efficient computing in modern mobile systemsComputer Communications10.1016/j.comcom.2023.12.037Online publication date: Jan-2024
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Chen ZHua YZuo PSun YGuo Y(2024)Approximate Similarity-Aware Compression for Non-Volatile Main MemoryJournal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/s11390-023-2565-739:1(63-81)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-023-2565-7
Kundu SRaha ABanerjee SNatarajan SBasu K(2023)Analysis and Mitigation of DRAM Faults in Sparse-DNN AcceleratorsIEEE Design & Test10.1109/MDAT.2022.318354540:2(90-99)Online publication date: Apr-2023
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Index Terms

Flikker: saving DRAM refresh-power through critical data partitioning
1. Hardware
  1. Communication hardware, interfaces and storage
  2. Hardware test
    1. Memory test and repair

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 46, Issue 3

ASPLOS '11

March 2011

407 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/1961296

Issue’s Table of Contents

ASPLOS XVI: Proceedings of the sixteenth international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems
March 2011
432 pages
ISBN:9781450302661
DOI:10.1145/1950365
General Chair:
Rajiv Gupta
University of California, Riverside
,
Program Chair:
Todd C. Mowry
Carnegie Mellon University

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

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Published: 05 March 2011

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 46, Issue 3

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2023.12.037
Chen ZHua YZuo PSun YGuo Y(2024)Approximate Similarity-Aware Compression for Non-Volatile Main MemoryJournal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/s11390-023-2565-739:1(63-81)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-023-2565-7
Kundu SRaha ABanerjee SNatarajan SBasu K(2023)Analysis and Mitigation of DRAM Faults in Sparse-DNN AcceleratorsIEEE Design & Test10.1109/MDAT.2022.318354540:2(90-99)Online publication date: Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/MDAT.2022.3183545
Liu MQue HYang XZhang KYu QYan LWang TJin YZhou N(2023)A Selective Bit Dropping and Encoding Co-Strategy in Image Processing for Low-Power Design in DRAM and SRAMIEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems10.1109/JETCAS.2023.323440213:1(48-57)Online publication date: Mar-2023
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Alawneh TJarajreh MAlkasassbeh JSharadqh A(2023)High-Performance and Power-Saving Mechanism for Page Activations Based on Full Independent DRAM Sub-Arrays in Multi-Core SystemsIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.329984811(79801-79822)Online publication date: 2023
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Ferdaus FBahar Talukder BRahman M(2022)Approximate MRAM: High-performance and Power-efficient Computing with MRAM Chips for Error-tolerant ApplicationsIEEE Transactions on Computers10.1109/TC.2022.3174584(1-1)Online publication date: 2022
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