Towards an Energy-Efficient RISC-V Core Architecture with Dynamic Dual-Issue and Clock Gating
Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/Report › Conference contribution › Contributed › peer-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 language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | 2025 28th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD) |
| Editors | Daniel Casini, Francisco J. Cazorla |
| Pages | 300-307 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| ISBN (electronic) | 979-8-3315-8499-3 |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2025 |
| Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Publication series
| Series | Euromicro Symposium on Digital System Design (DSD) |
|---|---|
| ISSN | 2639-3859 |
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
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Clock gating, Dualissue RISC-V core, Energy efficiency, Threshold-based control