An LTE Uplink Receiver PHY benchmark and subframe-based power management

Abstract

With the proliferation of mobile phones and other mobile internet appliances, the application area of baseband processing continues to grow in importance. Much academic research addresses the underlying mathematics, but little has been published on the design of systems to execute baseband workloads. Most systems research is conducted within companies who go to great lengths to protect their intellectual property. We present an open-source LTE Uplink Receiver PHY benchmark with a realistic representation of the baseband processing of an LTE base station, and we demonstrate its usefulness in investigating resource management strategies to conserve power on a TILEPro64. By estimating the workload of each subframe and using these estimates to control power-gating, we reduce power consumption by more than 24% (11% on average) compared to executing the benchmark with no estimation-guided resource management. By making available a benchmark containing no proprietary algorithms, we enable a broader community to conduct research both in baseband processing and on the systems that are used to execute such workloads.