Power conservation strategies for MEMS-based storage devices (original) (raw)

Designing computer systems with MEMS-based storage

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, 2000

For decades the RAM-to-disk memory hierarchy gap has plagued computer architects. An exciting new storage technology based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is poised to fill a large portion of this performance gap, significantly reduce system power consumption, and enable many new applications. This paper explores the system-level implications of integrating MEMS-based storage into the memory hierarchy. Results show that standalone MEMS-based storage reduces I/O stall times by 4-74X over disks and improves overall application runtimes by 1.9-4.4X. When used as on-board caches for disks, MEMS-based storage improves I/O response time by up to 3.5X. Further, the energy consumption of MEMS-based storage is 10-54X less than that of state-of-the-art low-power disk drives. The combination of the high-level physical characteristics of MEMS-based storage (small footprints, high shock tolerance) and the ability to directly integrate MEMS-based storage with processing leads to such new...

Power-aware data management for small devices

2002

Abstract Pervasive computing devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. The future promises even more advanced devices such as digital watches, jewelry, and even clothing. However, as pervasive devices become more widely used for more advanced applications, their resource limitations are becoming more apparent. In this work, we focus on data management and power limitations.

Using MEMS-Based Storage in Computer Systems—MEMS Storage Architectures

As an emerging nonvolatile secondary storage technology, MEMS-based storage exhibits several desirable properties including high performance, high storage volumic density, low power consumption , low entry cost, and small form factor. However, MEMS-based storage provides a limited amount of storage per device and is likely to be more expensive than magnetic disk. Systems designers will therefore need to make trade-offs to achieve well-balanced designs. We present an architecture in which MEMS devices are organized into MEMS storage enclosures with online spares. Such enclosures are proven to be highly reliable storage building bricks with no maintenance during their economic lifetimes. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of using MEMS as another layer in the storage hierarchy, bridging the cost and performance gap between MEMS storage and disk. We show that using MEMS as a disk cache can significantly improve system performance and cost-performance ratio.