Exploring Power Advantage of Binary Search: An Experimental Study

Abstract

As exascale systems come online, more ways are needed to keep them within reasonable power budgets. This study aims to help uncover power advantages in algorithms likely ubiquitous in high-performance workloads such as searching. This study explored the power efficiency of binary search and its ternary variant, comparing consumption under different scenarios and workloads. Accurate modern on-chip integrated voltage regulators were used to get reliable power measurements. Results showed the binary version of the algorithm, which runs slower but relies on a barrel-shifter circuit, to be more power efficient in all studied scenarios offering an attractive time-power tradeoff. The cumulative savings were significant and will likely be valuable where the search may be a substantial fraction of workloads, especially massive ones.