Energy consumption is a critical constraint in the design of modern computer systems. Research in SEE lab addresses energy efficiency in systems of all sizes, from sensor nodes to processors to data centers. Portable systems, such as mobile embedded systems and wireless sensor networks, typically operate with a limited energy source such as batteries. The design process for these systems is characterized by a tradeoff between high performance and low power consumption, emphasizing the need to meet performance constraints while minimizing the power consumption. Decreasing the power consumption is also an important factor in lowering the packaging and the cooling costs of embedded systems. On the other end, stationary systems also require energy efficiency due the operating costs and environmental concerns related to desktops, servers and data centers. Current data centers are increasingly limited by power and thermal capacity. The annual energy cost of a large data center can be in the range of millions of dollars, and the cooling cost is about half of the total energy cost. Energy efficient and temperature aware approaches address these large scale systems at different levels, such as the whole data center, computing clusters, servers or components such as processors, disk drives, etc.

System energy efficiency lab is part of Embedded Systems and Software group at UCSD.

Old photos :

2008 :