EDF scheduling using two-mode voltage-clock-scaling for hard real-time systems

Scaling down power supply voltage yields a quadratic reduction in dynamic power dissipation and also requires a reduction in clock frequency. In order to meet task deadlines in hard real-time systems, the delay penalty in voltage scaling needs to be carefully considered to achieve low power consumption. In this paper, we focus on dynamic reclaiming of early released resources in Earliest Deadline First (EDF) scheduling using voltage scaling. In addition to a static voltage assignment, we propose a new dynamic-mode assignment, which has a flexible voltage mode setting at run-time enabling much larger energy savings. Using simulation results and exploiting the interplay between power supply voltage, frequency, and circuit delay in CMOS technology, we find the optimal twolevel voltage settings that minimize energy consumption.