CAREER: Overcoming Power Challenges in Embedded System Design With Subthreshold-Voltage Technology

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal No: 0747262 Title: CAREER: Overcoming Power Challenges in Embedded System Design With Subthreshold-Voltage Technology PI Name: Nazhandali Nazhandali,Leyla Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University With more than 98% of all programmable processors running in embedded mode that are expected to deliver increasingly more sophisticated functionalities, the ``power struggle" has become an increasingly critical issue. Power restrictions imposed by the so-called power envelope, further aggravated by the battery life in embedded systems, compel designers to trade performance for reduced power. Furthermore, hackers, unable to break the cryptosystems using theoretical methods, have turned to secret-revealing physical properties of these systems, such as varying power consumption, to deduce secret information; these attacks are known as power side-channel attacks. The objective of this proposal is to overcome these two closely related challenges resulting from high levels of power consumption and from high degrees of variations in power levels that reveal secret information. The proposal's uniform approach to solve various facets of these problems is the exploitation of the subthreshold-voltage technology. This technique is an extreme case of voltage scaling so that the operating voltage is below the ?threshold? that turns the transistors on. This proposal plans to advance the state of secure and low-power embedded system design through innovations in subthreshold-voltage microarchitectural techniques focusing on two specific research thrusts: 1) designing a multi-core architecture with subthreshold voltage cores, which is expected to deliver the same performance as a regular design while consuming 90% less power, and 2) partitioning a secure design into security-critical and non-critical regions so that the former runs at subthreshold voltage and the latter in superthreshold, thus maximizing the performance and minimizing the risk of side-channel attacks. This proposal aims to facilitate the use of subthreshold-based hardware design for embedded system designers by developing CAD tools, architectural techniques, and performance/power profiling-based case studies. This, in turn, will result in increased use of this technology, enabling the achievement of new low-power milestones hitherto impossible because of the barriers imposed by traditional technologies. Some of the foreseeable application areas that could be significantly improved by advancing the targeted thrusts include electronic passports, wireless security cameras, rescue and recovery robots, and handheld landmine detectors. As part of the educational aspect of this proposal, a hands-on pre-college program, called ?Embedded for Life,? will be established in order to present the creative and beneficial aspects of the computer engineering discipline. It will showcase the use of embedded microprocessors in bettering our lives. This program, which will be developed and publicized in collaboration with IEEE, SWE, and NSBE, will encourage participation of women and minorities in computer engineering on a local and national level.