An Ultra Low-power Processor with Dynamic Regfile Configuration

This paper proposes a Configurable Processor with Adjustable Regfile (CPAR), which can operate in both high performance (HP) and low power (LP) modes. By turning off half of the regfile, CPAR can switch between the two modes. For devices that handles computationally intensive programs and load intensive programs, CPAR can save an average of 30% power consumption in LP mode for load intensive programs compared to HP mode. And increase efficiency by 48% in HP mode for performing compute-intensive programs compared to LP mode. When the proportion of load-intensive projects is 0.8, the total energy consumption of CPAR is 20% less than non-pipelined processor with 32 registers.