Exploiting Fixed Programs in Embedded Systems: A Loop Cache Example

Abstract

Embedded systems commonly execute oneprogram for their lifetime. Designing embedded systemarchitectures with configurable components, such thatthose components can be tuned to that one program basedon a program pre-analysis, can yield significant powerand performance benefits. We illustrate such benefits bydesigning a loop cache specifically with tuning in mind.Our results show a 70% reduction in instruction memoryaccess, for MIPS and 8051 processors – representingtwice the reduction from a regular loop cache, translatingto good power savings.