The impact of source code transformations on software power and energy consumption

Software power consumption minimization is increasingly a very relevant issue in the design of embedded systems, in particular those dedicated to mobile devices. The paper aims to review the state of the art source code transformations in terms of their effectiveness on power and energy consumption reduction. A design framework for the C language has been set up, using the gcc compiler with SimplePower as the simulation kernel. Some new transformations have also been identified with the aim of reducing the power consumption. Four classes of transformations will be considered: loop transformations, data structures transformations, inter-procedural transformations and control structure transformations. For each transformation, together with the evaluation of the energy and power consumption, some applicability criteria have been defined.