Copyright by William Lloyd Bircher 2010 - The Laboratory for ...

3.6 Summary
This section describes concepts and methodologies for modeling processor power
consumption through the use of performance monitoring counters. These models achieve
average error rates of under 1% using only a handful of metrics/signals. Simple,
deterministic, processor power models such as these will increase in importance as the
need for energy efficiency increases. Techniques that maximize performance within
fixed power limits or optimize power metrics (Perf/Watt, Energy × Delay, etc.) are
becoming prevalent in processors [Po10][McPo06][ChJa09] and systems. Since these
techniques rely on accurate processor power accounting, performance counter power
models will increase in importance.
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