ABSTRACT
Along with the rapid advance of chip design technologies, the energy consumption and heat dissipation are also increasing at a similar pace [39]. Such a trend raises a few critical engineering problems. For example, an inefficient energy management for an embedded system may keep the processor run at its highest clock frequency (full speed), and thus deplete the battery power in a short time. Executing jobs at a high speed also results in more heat dispersion per unit time by the processor. If the temperature rises beyond some threshold, the processor’s circuit timingwill be affectedwhichmay result in anunpredictable behavior and cause the processor to function erratically or even halt. It has been widely accepted that energy consumption has become the bottleneck for improving a system’s performance and has been one of the most significant factors to optimize.
