PicoServer: This project looked at the requirements for Tier 1 servers that served primarily static content such as web-servers. During the project we developed and evaluated a model of a very low power server chip that used 3D die stacking and non-volatile flash memory to reduce power consumption and maintain acceptable performance. This work is very similar to my current project on “Near Threshold Computer Architectures”.
Razor: Razor is a circuit technique that allows robust operation at very low voltages in processor pipelines by monitoring timing violations. When a timing violation occurs the processor is shifted to a higher voltage and rolls back to a previous known good state and allowed to execute past the spot where the problem was detected. During my involvement with this project we built a working prototype and worked with ARM to put Razor into a production processor. Work is still proceeding with Razor under Prof. David Blaauw here at the University of Michigan.