Towards an Energy-Efficient RISC-V Core Architecture with Dynamic Dual-Issue and Clock Gating

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

The escalating demand for energy-efficient embedded systems necessitates innovative approaches to mitigate dynamic power consumption in general-purpose cores. This paper introduces a threshold-based, workload-adaptive clockgating technique for a dual-issue RISC-V core, dynamically disabling the underutilized second-issue datapath to reduce dynamic power consumption. The method employs a threshold-based clock-gating controller that dynamically activates the secondissue pipeline according to the target workload and desired energy/performance trade-offs. By integrating latch- and flip-flop-based clock-gating mechanisms into the open-source VeeR EH1 dual-issue core, coarse-grained control over the secondissue pipeline is achieved, enhancing energy efficiency with minimal impact on computing performance. For prototyping and evaluation, an FPGA implementation targeting AMD/Xilinx FPGA devices, along with CoreMark benchmark evaluation, has been conducted, demonstrating 5% improvement in energy efficiency and a dynamic power savings of up to 15%, making the approach particularly suitable for power-constrained embedded systems.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2025 28th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD)
EditorsDaniel Casini, Francisco J. Cazorla
Pages300-307
Number of pages8
ISBN (electronic)979-8-3315-8499-3
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesEuromicro Symposium on Digital System Design (DSD)
ISSN2639-3859

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-2571-8441/work/203808964
Mendeley dc8d6c3a-e65c-3241-aa62-57f6d9dca198
unpaywall 10.1109/dsd67783.2025.00050
Scopus 105030539078

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

Keywords

  • Clock gating, Dualissue RISC-V core, Energy efficiency, Threshold-based control