Embedded Operating System Energy Analysis and Macro-Modeling

A large and increasing number of modern embedded systems are subject to tight power/energy constraints. It has been demonstrated that the operating system (OS) can have a significant impact on the energy efficiency of the embedded system. Hence, analysis of the energy effects of the OS is of great importance. Conventional approaches to energy analysis of the OS (and embedded software, in general) require the application software to be completely developed and integrated with the system software, and that either measurement on a hardware prototype or detailed simulation of the entire system be performed. Since this process requires significant design effort, unfortunately, it is typically too late in the design cycle to perform high-level or architectural optimizations on the embedded software, restricting the scope of power savings.