Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC (전자공학회논문지SC)

The Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers (대한전자공학회)
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A Load Emulator for Low-power Embedded Systems and Its Application

저전력 내장형 시스템을 위한 부하의 전력 소모 에뮬레이션 시스템과 응용

  • Kim, Kwan-Ho (Department of Device Solution, Samsung Electronics) ;
  • Chang, Nae-Hyuck (School of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University)
  • Published : 2005.11.01
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Abstract

The efficiency of power supply circuits such as DC-DC converters and batteries varies on the trend of the power consumption because their efficiencies are not fixed. To analyze the efficiency of power supply circuits, we need the temporal behavior of the power consumption of the loads, which is dependent on the activity factors of the devices during the operation. Since it is not easy to model every detail of those factors, one of the most accurate power consumption analyses of power supply circuits is measurement of a real system, which is expensive and time consuming. In this paper, we introduce an active load emulator for embedded systems which is capable of power measurement, logging, replaying and synthesis. We adopt a pattern recognition technique for data compression in that long-term behaviors of power consumption consist of numbers of repetitions of short-term behaviors, and the number of short-term behaviors is generally limited to a small number. We also devise a heterogeneous structure of active load elements so that low-speed, high-current active load elements and high-speed, low-current active load elements may emulate large amount and fast changing power consumption of digital systems. For the performance evaluation of our load emulator, we demonstrate power measurement and emulation of a hard drive. As an application of our load emulator, it is used for the analysis of a DC-DC converter efficiency and for the verification of a low-power frequency scaling policy for a real-time task.

내장형 시스템의 DC-DC 변환기나 배터리의 효율은 시스템을 구성하는 디바이스들의 종류 및 다양한 동작 패턴에 따른 전류의 시간적인 변화에 영향을 받는다. 이러한 특성은 DC-DC 변환기나 배터리의 효율을 분석하기 위해서는 다양한 부하를 가지는 실제 시스템을 구현, 응용프로그램을 수행하고, 배터리와 DC-DC 변환기를 포함한 전원 공급 회로를 연결하여 실제로 전력 소모를 측정할 것을 요구하지만, 이와 같이 실제 시스템을 구현한다는 것은 엄청난 개발 시간과 비용을 요구한다. 본 논문에서는 부하들의 전력 소모를 측정에 의해 얻어 저장하고 전원 공급 회로로부터 실제 시스템의 부하처럼 전력을 소모하도록 에뮬레이션 해줄 수 있는 시스템을 구현하였다. 구현한 부하 에뮬레이터(load emulator)는 측정한 전력 소모 프로파일의 양을 줄이기 위해 패턴 인식 후 압축하는 알고리즘을 사용하며, 저속 대용량 능동부하(active load)와 고속 소용량 능동부하들로 이루어진 비대칭(heterogeneous) 구조로 구현함으로써 전력 소모의 양이 많고 전력 소모가 신속하게 변하는 디지털 시스템의 부하를 에뮬레이션 할 수 있게 해준다. 구현한 부하 에뮬레이터의 성능을 평가하기 위해 하드디스크의 전력 소모를 측정 및 재생하여 비교하며, 부하 에뮬레이터의 응용으로써 부하의 전력 소모 패턴에 따른 DC-DC 변환기의 효율을 검토해 보았다.

Keywords

References

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