The low power architecture approach towards exascale computing

Energy efficiency is a first-order concern when deploying any computer system. From battery-operated mobile devices, to data centers and supercomputers, energy consumption limits the performance that can be offered. We are exploring an alternative to current supercomputers that builds on low power mobile processors. We present initial results from our prototype system based on ARM Cortex-A9, which achieves 120 MFLOPS/W, and discuss the possibilities to increase its energy efficiency. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.