Penn Helps Rethink Smartphone Design With 'Computational Sprinting'

Computational sprinting is a groundbreaking new approach to smartphone power and cooling that could give users dramatic, brief bursts of computing capability to improve current applications and make new ones possible. Its developers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan are pushing mobile chips beyond their sustainable operating limits, much like a sprinter who runs extremely fast for a relatively short distance. The researchers will present a paper on their concept Feb. 28 at the International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture in New Orleans. "We asked: what if we designed a chip to run at 16 times the sustainable rate, but only for half a second? Can we do it without burning out the chip? We did the calculations and simulations, and we find that it is indeed possible to engineer such a system," said one of the study's authors, Milo M.K. Martin , associate professor in the department of Computer and Information Science in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Normally, these devices are designed for sustained performance, so that they can run full bore forever. We're proposing a computer system that can perform a giant surge of computation but then gets tired and has time to rest," said Thomas Wenisch , study co-author and an assistant professor at the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.