Dynamic voltage assignment for thermal-constrained task scheduler on 3D multi-core processors

Thermal-constrained task scheduler for throughput optimization on 3D multi-core processors (3D-MCPs) has been studied extensively. Most task scheduler focused on thermal-aware task allocation to reduce hotspots, thereby maximizing throughput under thermal constraints. Rather than focusing on the thermal-aware task allocation as previous work does, this work targets on the voltage assignment. In this paper, dynamic voltage assignment is proposed to pre-emptively assign different voltage levels to cores frequently for reducing temperature increase in 3D-MCPs. Experimental results show that two previous task schedulers integrated with the proposed dynamic voltage assignment can lower hotspot occurrences by 62.31% and 59.09%, and improve throughput by 18.28% and 18.35%, respectively. As a result, task schedulers integrated with the proposed dynamic voltage assignment can be more effective to reduce occurrences of hotspots and optimize throughput for 3D-MCPs under thermal constraints.