Dynamic power management techniques in multi-core architectures: A survey study

Multi-core processors support all modern electronic devices nowadays. However, power management is one of the most critical issues in the design of today's microprocessors. The goal of power management is to maximize performance within a given power budget. Power management techniques must balance between the demanding needs for higher performance/throughput and the impact of aggressive power consumption and negative thermal effects. Many techniques have been proposed in this area, and some of them have been implemented such as the well-known DVFS technique which is used in nearly all modern microprocessors. This paper explores the concepts of multi-core, trending research areas in the field of multi-core processors and then concentrates on power management issues in multi-core architectures. The main objective of this paper is to survey and discuss the current power management techniques. Moreover, it proposes a new technique for power management in multi-core processors based on that survey.