Energy-Aware Core Switching for Mobile Devices with a Heterogeneous Multicore Processor

Mobile devices should be designed to meet two contradictory goals: providing the performance desired by users while minimizing the energy consumption to meet the users' expectation of the battery run-time. The heterogeneous multicore architecture has been introduced to mobile world for higher energy-efficiency and performance. It is possible, however, only when the operating system assigns the appropriate core for an application to take full advantage of the heterogeneity. This article addresses the problem of the core selection for mobile devices with a heterogeneous multicore processor. It is shown that core switching for less energy consumption must consider both core frequency and utilization at the same time.