CAN BENCHMARKS USEFULLY COMPARE ENERGY EFFICIENCY? - TOOLS AND BENCHMARKS ARE BEGINNING TO APPEAR THAT TRY TO TACKLE HOW TO COMPARE POWER AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY BETWEEN PROCESSORS

摘要

BENCHMARKS FOR COMPARING the relative performance between processor alternatives are strictly design-productivity tools. They do not, by themselves, make a technical challenge solvable, but they can reduce the amount of time it takes a developer to choose a processor for a project. That is, in an ideal world, standard benchmarks would provide developers with a way to quickly and accurately compare alternatives in an apples-to-apples fashion. The reality of embedded-processor benchmarking is that it is difficult to provide a simple, quick, and comprehensive approach for an apples-to-apples comparison across all types of applications and processor architectures. In addition to processor-performance benchmarks, several organizations are currently working on ways to meaningfully describe and compare processors' power and energy efficiency.