GreenChip: A tool for evaluating holistic sustainability of modern computing systems
DocUID: 2019-010Author: Donald Kline, Jr., Nikolas Parshook, Xiaoyu Ge, Erik Brunvand, Rami Melhem, Panos K. Chrysanthis, Alex K. Jones
Abstract: There is mounting evidence that manufacturing energy and environmental costs are a growing factor in the overall energy footprint of computing systems. The quantification of these impacts requires the evaluation of both the manufacturing and use phase energy/environmental costs of major integrated circuit (IC) components, including processing units, memory, and storage. In particular, expansions of memory and cache can potentially increase manufacturing costs beyond what can be recovered through use phase advantages for reasonable usage patterns. With this holistic view of sustainability in mind, we provide evaluations of the environmental impacts of memory and cache options for Parsec and SPEC multi-program workloads. Using indifference point analysis, we determine which architectural decisions are the most sustainable in the context of these workloads for various usage scenarios. Through a form of break even analysis, we show the impact of upgrading to a new technology node. Our analysis of current processor trends indicates that upgrading may require upwards of 10 years of service time to break even, and that designing systems with smaller cache and main memory sizes may provide an overall positive environmental trend without dramatically reducing performance.
Keywords: Sustainable computing, Life cycle assessment, Indifference analysis, Embodied energy
Published In: Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems
Volume: 22Pages: 322-332
Year Published: 2019
Note: (Accepted and published on-line on 10/10/2017)
DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.suscom.2017.10.001
Project: Energy Subject Area: Energy Efficiency
Publication Type: Journal Paper
Sponsor: Pitt MSCI Seed