MEMPOWER: A Simple Memory Power Analysis Tool Set

MEMPOWER is a tool set for analyzing memory traces to determine utilization and calculate the power and energy consumption of the memory hardware. The goal of MEMPOWER is to provide a simple, relatively quick-to-run estimation of memory power consumption based on how a workload uses the memory and the technologies used to implement the memory subsystem. It also allows one to experiment with different power-management policies and parameters. In addition to calculating memory power and energy, MEMPOWER also computes the performance impact of power management in terms of the number of cycles of delay injected by power-management actions. The major contribution of MEMPOWER is to provide an intermediate step in the power analysis of memory subsystems between simple spreadsheet models such as the one provided by Micron [1] and full, power-aware simulations of memory. Recent uses of it include the evaluation of cooperative, hardware-software, power management of memory as reported in a recent paper [2].
This report describes the theory, structure and implementation characteristics of MEMPOWER. It also provides a sample evaluation of memory power and energy under various policies based on a memory trace taken with the Mambo full-system simulator [3].