PowMon Tool Download

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Accurately estimating CPU power consumption is a key requirement for controlling CPUs – e.g. for implementing energy saving techniques – and for exploring the CPU design space.

PRiME researchers have developed a tool , PowMon, that uses models built and validated from real, measured data from an actual device. This means that the tool accuracy is known and therefore the power figures can be trusted.

Obtaining accurate data from mobile devices can be challenging and more time-consuming than using a simulator or desktop/server devices. For this reason, PRiME is making available its experimental platform software tools which allow workloads to be automatically run on a mobile device. Metrics such as Performance Monitoring Counters (PMCs), temperature, CPU utilisation, CPU power and CPU voltage are collected and analysed to produce accurate power models.

The PowMon software has two main features:

  1. It allows users to automate the model building methodology for their hardware of choice, producing accurate and stable models
  2. It provides power models for specific CPUs, e.g. quad core Cortex-A7 and quad core Cortex-A15, which can be used as reference models for this hardware

Details of the tool methodology have been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD) and will be published shortly.

Further information and the PowMon tool software download is available at:

http://www.powmon.ecs.soton.ac.uk/powermodeling/