10x10: A Case Study in Highly-Programmable and Energy-Efficient Heterogeneous Federated Architecture

Customized architecture is widely recognized as an important approach for improved performance and energyefficiency. To balance generality and customization benefit, researchers have proposed to federate heterogeneous micro-engines. Using the 10x10 architecture and an integrated image and vision benchmark as a case study, we explore the performance and energy benefits achievable. Results for current 32nm technology and DDR3 memory show 10x10 architecture benefits of 140x performance and 72x energy overall. Adding 3D-stacked DRAM increase benefits to 171x (performance) and 100x (energy). Finally, considering future 7nm transistor process, benefits as large as 597x (performance) and 137x energy are observed.