Energy-Efficient Concurrency Control for Dynamic-Priority Real-Time Tasks with Abortable Critical Sections

In this paper, we are interested in energy-efficient concurrency control for real-time tasks on a non-ideal DVS processor. Based on well-known ceiling-based concurrency control protocols (such as priority ceiling protocol (PCP) and stack resource policy (SRP)), researchers have proposed energy-efficient approaches to mange concurrent accesses to shared resources so that the energy consumption can be reduced. However, ceiling-based protocols have a problem of ceiling blocking which imposes a great impact on the performance of real-time systems. In order to achieve sufficient performance, we propose a new protocol, called conditional abortable stack resource policy (CA-SRP), to resolve the ceiling blocking problem for dynamic-priority real-time tasks by incorporating a conditional abort rule into SRP. Based on the schedulability analysis of CA-SRP, we also propose a method, called dynamic speed assignment (DSA), to dynamically calculate and assign proper processor speeds for task execution so that the energy consumption can be reduced further. The capabilities of our proposed CA-SRP and DSA have been evaluated by a series of experiments, for which we have encouraging results

Heuristic Approach for Scheduling Dependent Real-Time Tasks

Reducing energy consumption is a critical issue in the design of battery-powered real time systems to prolong battery life. With dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) processors, energy consumption can be reduced efficiently by making appropriate decisions on the processor speed/voltage during the scheduling of real time tasks. Scheduling decision is usually based on parameters which are assumed to be crisp. However, in many circumstances the values of these parameters are vague. The vagueness of parameters suggests that to develop a fuzzy logic approach to reduce energy consumption by determining the appropriate supply-voltage/speed of the processor provided that timing constraints are guaranteed. Intensive simulated experiments and qualitative comparisons with the most related literature have been conducted in the context of dependent real-time tasks. Experimental results have shown that the proposed fuzzy scheduler saves more energy and creates feasible schedules for real time tasks. It also considers tasks priorities which cause higher system utilization and lower deadline miss time

Heuristic Approach for Scheduling Dependent Real-Time Tasks

Reducing energy consumption is a critical issue in the design of battery-powered real time systems to prolong battery life. With dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) processors, energy consumption can be reduced efficiently by making appropriate decisions on the processor speed/voltage during the scheduling of real time tasks. Scheduling decision is usually based on parameters which are assumed to be crisp. However, in many circumstances the values of these parameters are vague. The vagueness of parameters suggests that to develop a fuzzy logic approach to reduce energy consumption by determining the appropriate supply-voltage/speed of the processor provided that timing constraints are guaranteed. Intensive simulated experiments and qualitative comparisons with the most related literature have been conducted in the context of dependent real-time tasks. Experimental results have shown that the proposed fuzzy scheduler saves more energy and creates feasible schedules for real time tasks. It also considers tasks priorities which cause higher system utilization and lower deadline miss time

Processor Speed Control for Power Reduction of Real-Time Systems

Reducing energy consumption is a critical issue in the design of battery-powered real time systems to prolong battery life. With dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) processors, energy consumption can be reduced efficiently by making appropriate decisions on the processor speed/voltage during the scheduling of real time tasks. Scheduling decision is usually based on parameters which are assumed to be crisp. However, in many circumstances the values of these parameters are vague. The vagueness of parameters suggests that to develop a fuzzy logic approach to reduce energy consumption by determining the appropriate supply-voltage/speed of the processor provided that timing constraints are guaranteed. Intensive simulated experiments and qualitative comparisons with the most related literature have been conducted in the context of dependent real-time tasks. Experimental results have shown that the proposed fuzzy scheduler saves more energy and creates feasible schedules for real time tasks. It also considers tasks priorities which cause higher system utilization and lower deadline miss time

Synthesis of application specific processor architectures for ultra-low energy consumption

In this paper we suggest that further energy savings can be achieved by a new approach to synthesis of embedded processor cores, where the architecture is tailored to the algorithms that the core executes. In the context of embedded processor synthesis, both single-core and many-core, the types of algorithms and demands on the execution efficiency are usually known at the chip design time. This knowledge can be utilised at the design stage to synthesise architectures optimised for energy consumption. Firstly, we present an overview of both traditional energy saving techniques and new developments in architectural approaches to energy-efficient processing. Secondly, we propose a picoMIPS architecture that serves as an architectural template for energy-efficient synthesis. As a case study, we show how the picoMIPS architecture can be tailored to an energy efficient execution of the DCT algorithm

Composition and synchronization of real-time components upon one processor

Many industrial systems have various hardware and software functions for controlling mechanics. If these functions act independently, as they do in legacy situations, their overall performance is not optimal. There is a trend towards optimizing the overall system performance and creating a synergy between the different functions in a system, which is achieved by replacing more and more dedicated, single-function hardware by software components running on programmable platforms. This increases the re-usability of the functions, but their synergy requires also that (parts of) the multiple software functions share the same embedded platform. In this work, we look at the composition of inter-dependent software functions on a shared platform from a timing perspective. We consider platforms comprised of one preemptive processor resource and, optionally, multiple non-preemptive resources. Each function is implemented by a set of tasks; the group of tasks of a function that executes on the same processor, along with its scheduler, is called a component. The tasks of a component typically have hard timing constraints. Fulfilling these timing constraints of a component requires analysis. Looking at a single function, co-operative scheduling of the tasks within a component has already proven to be a powerful tool to make the implementation of a function more predictable. For example, co-operative scheduling can accelerate the execution of a task (making it easier to satisfy timing constraints), it can reduce the cost of arbitrary preemptions (leading to more realistic execution-time estimates) and it can guarantee access to other resources without the need for arbitration by other protocols. Since timeliness is an important functional requirement, (re-)use of a component for composition and integration on a platform must deal with timing. To enable us to analyze and specify the timing requirements of a particular component in isolation from other components, we reserve and enforce the availability of all its specified resources during run-time. The real-time systems community has proposed hierarchical scheduling frameworks (HSFs) to implement this isolation between components. After admitting a component on a shared platform, a component in an HSF keeps meeting its timing constraints as long as it behaves as specified. If it violates its specification, it may be penalized, but other components are temporally isolated from the malignant effects. A component in an HSF is said to execute on a virtual platform with a dedicated processor at a speed proportional to its reserved processor supply. Three effects disturb this point of view. Firstly, processor time is supplied discontinuously. Secondly, the actual processor is faster. Thirdly, the HSF no longer guarantees the isolation of an individual component when two arbitrary components violate their specification during access to non-preemptive resources, even when access is arbitrated via well-defined real-time protocols. The scientific contributions of this work focus on these three issues. Our solutions to these issues cover the system design from component requirements to run-time allocation. Firstly, we present a novel scheduling method that enables us to integrate the component into an HSF. It guarantees that each integrated component executes its tasks exactly in the same order regardless of a continuous or a discontinuous supply of processor time. Using our method, the component executes on a virtual platform and it only experiences that the processor speed is different from the actual processor speed. As a result, we can focus on the traditional scheduling problem of meeting deadline constraints of tasks on a uni-processor platform. For such platforms, we show how scheduling tasks co-operatively within a component helps to meet the deadlines of this component. We compare the strength of these cooperative scheduling techniques to theoretically optimal schedulers. Secondly, we standardize the way of computing the resource requirements of a component, even in the presence of non-preemptive resources. We can therefore apply the same timing analysis to the components in an HSF as to the tasks inside, regardless of their scheduling or their protocol being used for non-preemptive resources. This increases the re-usability of the timing analysis of components. We also make non-preemptive resources transparent during the development cycle of a component, i.e., the developer of a component can be unaware of the actual protocol being used in an HSF. Components can therefore be unaware that access to non-preemptive resources requires arbitration. Finally, we complement the existing real-time protocols for arbitrating access to non-preemptive resources with mechanisms to confine temporal faults to those components in the HSF that share the same non-preemptive resources. We compare the overheads of sharing non-preemptive resources between components with and without mechanisms for confinement of temporal faults. We do this by means of experiments within an HSF-enabled real-time operating system

임베디드 시스템에서 여러 컨볼루션 뉴럴 네트워크를 위한 하드웨어를 고려하는 소프트웨어 최적화 기법

학위논문 (박사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 공과대학 컴퓨터공학부, 2021. 2. 하순회.임베디드 기기는 대개 계산량, 메모리 크기, 에너지 소모량 등의 제약 사항이 있기 때문에, 딥 러닝 응용을 임베디드 기기에서 수행하는 것은 쉽지 않다. 딥 러닝 응용의 계산량 증가를 해결하기 위해서 에너지 효율적인 모바일 GPU, 디지털 신호 처리 프로세서을 사용하거나, 또는 새로운 뉴럴 프로세서 칩을 만드려는 하드웨어 영역의 최적화 방법이 있다. 반면에 딥 러닝 응용 영역에서는 새로운 딥 러닝 응용을 만들거나, 딥 러닝의 통계적인 특성을 이용한 근사 계산 방법을 이용하여 최적화 방법을 제안하고 있다. 그리고 또 다른 최적화 방법으로는 먼저 하드웨어 플랫폼의 성능 병목 부분을 찾고, 일을 동등하게 여러 계산 자원에 분배하여 최적화하는 하드웨어를 고려한 최적화 방법이 있다. 본 논문에서는 하드웨어를 고려한 소프트웨어 최적화 방법들을 고안하였다. 먼저, LPIRC 대회에 참가한 경험을 바탕으로 임베디드 딥 러닝 시스템을 최적화하는 체계적인 방법론을 고안하고, 그 방법론에 따른 C-GOOD이라는 딥 러닝 프레임워크를 구현하였다. C-GOOD은 하드웨어 플랫폼에 독립적으로 작동하기 위해 대부분의 임베디드 기기에서 컴파일, 수행이 가능한 C 코드를 생성한다. 또한 여러 가지 딥 러닝 응용 영역의 최적화 방법을 적용할 수 있는 옵션과 시스템 성능을 측정할 수 있는 기능을 제공하였다. 이 방법론을 Jetson TX2, Odroid XU4, SRP 등의 서로 다른 3개의 기기에 적용해 봄으로써, 고안된 방법론이 하드웨어 플랫폼에 독립적이며 C-GOOD을 통해 쉽게 여러 딥 러닝 응용 최적화 방법을 적용할 수 있음을 확인하였다. 최근 임베디드 기기에 이종 프로세서들이 많이 탑재되고 있고, 동시에 자율 주행 자동차와 스마트폰 등의 하나의 임베디드 기기에서 여러 개의 딥 러닝 응용을 동시에 수행하는 것이 필요해지고 있다. 본 논문에서는 여러 딥 러닝 응용을 이종 프로세서들을 탑재한 임베디드 기기에 스케줄하는 방법을 고안하고, 스케줄링 프레임워크를 구현하였다. 이 방법론은 실제 기기에서의 프로파일링부터 스케줄 결과를 실제 기기에서 확인하는 과정까지 포함하며, 실제 기기에서 발생하는 이슈들인 DVFS, CPU Hot-plug 등을 고려하였다. 이종 프로세서로의 스케줄링 기법으로는 많이 사용되는 메타 휴리스틱 알고리즘은 유전 알고리즘을 사용하였다. 특히, 서로 다른 주기와 상대 오프셋을 가지고 있는 여러 응용을 동시에 스케줄하기 위해서 모든 태스크들의 스케줄 가능성을 고려하여 스케줄하였다. 스케줄 결과를 검증하기 위해서, ACL의 코어 라이브러리를 이용하여 딥 러닝 추론 응용을 구현하였으며, 스케줄 결과와 같이 각 레이어들을 실제 하드웨어의 서로 다른 프로세서 매핑하도록 구현하였다. 갤럭시 S9 스마트폰과 Hikey 970 보드에서 서로 다른 두개의 딥 러닝 네트워크를 수행하고, 스케줄 결과와 비교하여 방법론을 검증할 수 있었다. 이전 최적화 방법들이 딥 러닝 응용의 계산량과 프로세서들에 집중하였는데, 딥 러닝 가속기 또는 NPU의 성능 병목이 생기는 원인은 오프 칩 메모리와 온 칩 사이의 통신이다. 더욱이 오프 칩 메모리 DRAM 접근은 NPU의 전력소모의 많은 부분을 차지한다고 알려져있다. 따라서 이와 같은 오프 칩 DRAM 접근으로 인한 NPU의 성능과 에너지 영향을 줄이고자 본 논문에서는 온 칩 메모리 뱅크를 관리하는 컴파일러 기법을 고안하였다. 온 칩 메모리를 여러 개의 뱅크로 구성하고 연산 도중에 인풋 데이터를 미리 로드함으로써 연산 지연 시간을 줄일 수 있다는 점과 레이어의 아웃풋을 온 칩 메모리에서 재사용하여 오프 칩 메모리 접근을 줄일 수 있다는 점을 이용하여 서로 다른 두 가지의 목적 함수를 가진 두 가지 기법을 고안하였다. 목적 함수는 각각 오프 칩 메모리 접근을 최소화하는 것과 오프 칩 메모리 접근으로 인한 프로세서들의 처리 지연시간을 줄이는 것이다. 서로 다른 5개의 딥 러닝 네트워크를 사이클 레벨 NPU 시뮬레이터에서 수행하여 두 목적 함수에 따른 절충 (Trade-off) 관계 를 확인하였다. 또한 온 칩 메모리 뱅크 관리 기법을 레이어 간 피처 데이터를 최대한 재사용하는 레이어 융합 방법으로 확장하였다. 기존의 순수한 레이어 융합 방법의 경우에는 중복 계산하는 오버헤드와 추가적인 필터 웨이트 로드가 생긴다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 기존의 레이어 별로 처리하는 방법과 순수한 레이어 융합 방법 사이의 하이브리드 레이어 융합 방법을 고안하였다. 두 온 칩 메모리 뱅크 관리 기법을 기반으로 하이브리드 레이어 융합 방법이 기존의 레이어 별 처리하는 기법과 순수한 레이어 융합 방법보다 좋은 성능을 보임을 확인할 수 있었다.Executing deep learning algorithms on mobile embedded devices is challenging because embedded devices usually have tight constraints on the computational power, memory size, and energy consumption, while the resource requirements of deep learning algorithms achieving high accuracy continue to increase. To cope with increasing computation complexity, it is common to use an energy-efficient accelerator, such as a mobile GPU or digital signal processor (DSP) array, or to develop a customized neural processor chip called neural processing unit (NPU). In the application domain, many optimization techniques have been proposed to change the application algorithm in order to reduce the computational amount and memory usage by developing new deep learning networks or software optimization techniques that take advantage of the statistical nature of deep learning algorithms. Another approach is hardware-ware software optimization, which finds the performance bottleneck first and then distributes the workload evenly by scheduling the workloads. This dissertation covers hardware-aware software optimization, which is based on a hardware processor or platform. First, we devise a systematic optimization methodology through the experience of participating in the Low Power Image Recognition Challenge (LPIRC) and build a deep learning framework called C-GOOD (C-code Generation Framework for Optimized On-device Deep Learning) based on the devised methodology. For hardware independence, C-GOOD generates a C code that can be compiled for and run on any embedded device. Also, C-GOOD is facilitated with various options for application domain optimization that can be performed according to the devised methodology. By applying the devised methodology to three hardware platforms, NVIDIA Jetson TX2, Odroid XU4, and the Samsung Reconfigurable Processor (SRP), we demonstrate that the devised methodology is independent of the hardware platforms and application domain optimizations can be performed easily with C-GOOD. Recently, embedded devices are equipped with heterogeneous processing elements (PEs), and the need for running multiple deep learning applications concurrently in the embedded systems such as self-driving cars and smartphones is increasing at the same time. In those systems, we devise an end-to-end methodology to schedule deep learning applications onto heterogeneous PEs and implement a scheduling framework according to the methodology. It covers from profiling on real embedded devices to verifying the schedule results on the devices. In this methodology, we use a genetic algorithm (GA)-based scheduling technique for scheduling deep learning applications onto heterogeneous PEs and consider several practical issues in the profile step. Furthermore, we schedule multiple applications with different throughput constraints considering the schedulability of mapped tasks on each processor. After implementing a deep learning inference engine that can utilize heterogeneous PEs using a low-level library of the ARM compute library (ACL), we verify the devised methodology by running two widely used convolution neural networks (CNNs) on a Galaxy S9 smartphones and a Hikey970 board. While the previous optimization methods focus on the computation and processing elements, the performance bottleneck of deep learning accelerators is the communication between off-chip and on-chip memory. Moreover, the off-chip DRAM access volume has a significant effect on the energy consumption of an NPU. To reduce the impact of off-chip DRAM access on the performance and energy of an NPU, we devise compiler techniques for an NPU to manage multi-bank on-chip memory with two different objectives: one is to minimize the off-chip memory access volume, and the other is to minimize the processing delay caused by unhidden DRAM accesses. The main idea is that by organizing on-chip memory into multiple banks, we may hide the off-chip DRAM access delay by prefetching data into unused banks during computation and reduce the off-chip DRAM access volume by storing the output feature map data of each layer to on-chip memory. By running CNN benchmarks on a cycle-level NPU simulator, we demonstrate the trade-off relation between two objectives. The devised multi-bank on-chip memory management (MOMM) techniques are extended to consider layer fusion that aims to reuse feature maps between layers maximally. Since the pure layer fusion technique incurs extra computation overhead and increases DRAM access for filter weights, a hybrid fusion technique is presented between a per-layer processing technique and the pure layer fusion techniques, based on the devised MOMM techniques with two different objectives. Experiment results confirm the superiority of the hybrid fusion technique to the per-layer processing technique and the pure layer fusion technique.Abstract Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Algorithms Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation 1 1.2 Contribution 7 1.3 Dissertation Organization 8 Chapter 2 Background 9 2.1 Target Hardware 9 2.1.1 Commodity Hardware Platform 9 2.1.2 Application-specific Hardware Accelerator 10 2.2 Convolutional Neural Network 11 2.2.1 Convolution 11 2.2.2 Optimization Methods for Convolutional Neural Network 11 Chapter 3 Optimization for a Commodity Hardware Platform 14 3.1 Joint Optimization Method of Multiple Objectives 15 3.1.1 Hardware Platform 16 3.1.2 Deep Neural Network and Software Framework 17 3.1.3 Software Optimization Techniques 19 3.2 C-code Generation Framework for Optimized On-device Deep Learning 29 3.2.1 C-GOOD Framework 29 3.2.2 Experiments 36 3.3 Scheduling Deep Learning Applications Onto Heterogeneous Processors 44 3.3.1 Search Space Size 45 3.3.2 Hardware Platform and System Model 45 3.3.3 Proposed Scheduling Framework and Profiling 48 3.3.4 Scheduling a Single Deep Learning Application 53 3.3.5 Scheduling Multiple Deep Learning Applications 61 3.3.6 Verification with Real Hardware Platforms 65 3.4 Related Work 69 3.4.1 Deep Learning Framework 69 3.4.2 Deep Learning Compiler 70 3.4.3 Scheduling Deep Learning Application 70 3.4.4 Scheduling Multiple Applications on Heterogeneous Processors 72 Chapter 4 Optimization for an Application-specific Hardware Accelerator 75 4.1 Multi-Bank On-chip Memory Management Problem 75 4.1.1 Main Idea 75 4.1.2 Assumed Dataflow 76 4.1.3 Multi-bank On-chip Memory Management Problem 79 4.2 Proposed Multi-bank On-chip Memory Management Techniques 83 4.2.1 DRAM-first Storing Policy 84 4.2.2 DRAM Access Minimization Policy (MIN policy) 85 4.2.3 DRAM Access Hiding Policy (HIDE policy) 89 4.2.4 Multiple Path Consideration 91 4.3 Layer Fusion Technique 92 4.3.1 Layer Fusion Technique 92 4.3.2 Hybrid Fusion Technique 94 4.4 Experiments 96 4.4.1 Setup 96 4.4.2 Performance Comparison of MOMM Techniques 98 4.4.3 Multiple Path 100 4.4.4 Design Space Exploration of NPU Architecture 101 4.4.5 Hybrid Fusion Technique 104 4.5 Related Work 106 Chapter 5 Conclusion 108 Bibliography 111 Appendix 120 A Proposed Multi-bank On-chip Memory Management Algorithm 120 A.1 Multi-bank On-chip Memory (MOM) Manager 120 A.2 MIN policy 122 A.3 HIDE policy 124 요 약 126Docto

Dynamic task scheduling and binding for many-core systems through stream rewriting

This thesis proposes a novel model of computation, called stream rewriting, for the specification and implementation of highly concurrent applications. Basically, the active tasks of an application and their dependencies are encoded as a token stream, which is iteratively modified by a set of rewriting rules at runtime. In order to estimate the performance and scalability of stream rewriting, a large number of experiments have been evaluated on many-core systems and the task management has been implemented in software and hardware.In dieser Dissertation wurde Stream Rewriting als eine neue Methode entwickelt, um Anwendungen mit einer großen Anzahl von dynamischen Tasks zu beschreiben und effizient zur Laufzeit verwalten zu können. Dabei werden die aktiven Tasks in einem Datenstrom verpackt, der zur Laufzeit durch wiederholtes Suchen und Ersetzen umgeschrieben wird. Um die Performance und Skalierbarkeit zu bestimmen, wurde eine Vielzahl von Experimenten mit Many-Core-Systemen durchgeführt und die Verwaltung von Tasks über Stream Rewriting in Software und Hardware implementiert