research-article

Clank: Architectural Support for Intermittent Computation

Author:

Matthew HicksAuthors Info & Claims

ISCA '17: Proceedings of the 44th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture

Pages 228 - 240

https://doi.org/10.1145/3079856.3080238

Published: 24 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

The processors that drive embedded systems are getting smaller; meanwhile, the batteries used to provide power to those systems have stagnated. If we are to realize the dream of ubiquitous computing promised by the Internet of Things, processors must shed large, heavy, expensive, and high maintenance batteries and, instead, harvest energy from their environment. One challenge with this transition is that harvested energy is insufficient for continuous operation. Unfortunately, existing programs fail miserably when executed intermittently.

This paper presents Clank: lightweight architectural support for correct and efficient execution of long-running applications on harvested energy---without programmer intervention or extreme hardware modifications. Clank is a set of hardware buffers and memory-access monitors that dynamically maintain idempotency. Essentially, Clank dynamically decomposes program execution into a stream of restartable sub-executions connected via lightweight checkpoints.

To validate Clank's ability to correctly stretch program execution across frequent, random power cycles, and to explore the associated hardware and software overheads, we implement Clank in Verilog, formally verify it, and then add it to an ARM Cortex M0+ processor which we use to run a set of 23 embedded systems benchmarks. Experiments show run-time overheads as low as 2.5%, with run-time overheads of 6% for a version of Clank that adds 1.7% hardware. Clank minimizes checkpoints so much that re-execution time becomes the dominate contributor to run-time overhead.

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Cited By

Ghasemi FLiedtke LJahre M(2024)ECM: Improving IoT Throughput with Energy-Aware Connection Management2024 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE)10.23919/DATE58400.2024.10546883(1-6)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.23919/DATE58400.2024.10546883
Shukla SPudukotai Dinakarrao SDev KYoo JMeinerzhagen P(2024)Energy Harvesting-Supported Efficient Low-Power ML Processing with Adaptive Checkpointing and Intermittent ComputingProceedings of the 29th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design10.1145/3665314.3670837(1-6)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3665314.3670837
Babatunde SAlsubhi AHester JSorber J(2024)Greentooth: Robust and Energy Efficient Wireless Networking for Batteryless DevicesACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/364922120:3(1-31)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2024
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Index Terms

Clank: Architectural Support for Intermittent Computation
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Dependable and fault-tolerant systems and networks
    1. Processors and memory architectures
    2. Reliability
  2. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Embedded systems
      1. Embedded hardware
2. Hardware
  1. Emerging technologies
    1. Memory and dense storage

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cover image ACM Conferences

ISCA '17: Proceedings of the 44th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture

June 2017

736 pages

ISBN:9781450348928

DOI:10.1145/3079856

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News Volume 45, Issue 2
ISCA'17
May 2017
715 pages
ISSN:0163-5964
DOI:10.1145/3140659
Editor:
Babak Falsafi
Interim
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

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IEEE: IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Design Automation
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Published: 24 June 2017

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ISCA '17

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ISCA '17: The 44th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture

June 24 - 28, 2017

ON, Toronto, Canada

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ISCA '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 54 of 322 submissions, 17%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 543 of 3,203 submissions, 17%

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The 52nd Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture

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Cited By

Ghasemi FLiedtke LJahre M(2024)ECM: Improving IoT Throughput with Energy-Aware Connection Management2024 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE)10.23919/DATE58400.2024.10546883(1-6)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.23919/DATE58400.2024.10546883
Shukla SPudukotai Dinakarrao SDev KYoo JMeinerzhagen P(2024)Energy Harvesting-Supported Efficient Low-Power ML Processing with Adaptive Checkpointing and Intermittent ComputingProceedings of the 29th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design10.1145/3665314.3670837(1-6)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3665314.3670837
Babatunde SAlsubhi AHester JSorber J(2024)Greentooth: Robust and Energy Efficient Wireless Networking for Batteryless DevicesACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/364922120:3(1-31)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649221
Shukla SDinakarrao S(2024)Bring it On: Kinetic Energy Harvesting to Spark Machine Learning Computations in IoTs2024 25th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED)10.1109/ISQED60706.2024.10528702(1-6)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISQED60706.2024.10528702
Reymond HBéchennec JBriday MFaucou SPuaut IRohou E(2024)SCHEMATIC: Compile-Time Checkpoint Placement and Memory Allocation for Intermittent Systems2024 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO)10.1109/CGO57630.2024.10444789(258-269)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/CGO57630.2024.10444789
Monjur MLuo YWang ZNirjon SHui PAmiri Sani ANurmi PLiu Y(2023)SoundSieve: Seconds-Long Audio Event Recognition on Intermittently-Powered SystemsProceedings of the 21st Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services10.1145/3581791.3596859(28-41)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3581791.3596859
Islam BLuo YNirjon S(2023)Amalgamated Intermittent Computing SystemsProceedings of the 8th ACM/IEEE Conference on Internet of Things Design and Implementation10.1145/3576842.3582388(184-196)Online publication date: 9-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576842.3582388
Li SLi SChen MSong CLu L(2023)Frequency Scaling Meets Intermittency: Optimizing Task Rate for RFID-Scale Computing DevicesIEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing10.1109/TMC.2023.3239515(1-12)Online publication date: 2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMC.2023.3239515
Sliper SWang WNikoleris NWeddell ASavanth APrabhat PMerrett G(2023)Pragmatic Memory-System Support for Intermittent Computing Using Emerging Nonvolatile MemoryIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2022.316826342:1(95-108)Online publication date: Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCAD.2022.3168263
Bakar AGoel Rde Winkel JHuang JAhmed SIslam BPawełczak PYıldırım KHester JGummeson JLee SGao JXing G(2022)ProteanProceedings of the 20th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems10.1145/3560905.3568561(207-221)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3560905.3568561
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