Abstract: As exascale systems come online, more ways are needed to keep them within reasonable power budgets. This study aims to help uncover power advantages in algorithms likely ubiquitous in high-performance workloads such as searching. This study explored the power efficiency of binary search and its ternary variant, comparing consumption under different scenarios and workloads. Accurate modern on-chip integrated voltage regulators were used to get reliable power measurements. Results showed the binary version of the algorithm, which runs slower but relies on a barrel-shifter circuit, to be more power efficient in all studied scenarios offering an attractive time-power tradeoff. The cumulative savings were significant and will likely be valuable where the search may be a substantial fraction of workloads, especially massive ones.

Muhammad Al-Hashimi and Naif Aljabri, “Exploring Power Advantage of Binary Search: An Experimental Study” International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications(IJACSA), 13(10), 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2022.0131094

@article{Al-Hashimi2022,
title = {Exploring Power Advantage of Binary Search: An Experimental Study},
journal = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
doi = {10.14569/IJACSA.2022.0131094},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2022.0131094},
year = {2022},
publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
volume = {13},
number = {10},
author = {Muhammad Al-Hashimi and Naif Aljabri}
}