Cause of HLC focus in the literature

Ascertain whether the predominant focus of state-of-the-art research on high-level controllers (HLCs) for power and thermal management in high-performance computing processors is caused by the absence of an open-source hardware/software research framework that accurately captures the complexity and interfaces of low-level controllers (LLCs) integrated within modern heterogeneous many-core MPSoCs.

Background

The paper distinguishes three classes of controllers for power and thermal management in modern HPC systems: global and local high-level controllers (HLCs) and integrated low-level controllers (LLCs). It observes that most prior work concentrates on HLCs despite LLCs being increasingly critical for fine-grained, real-time management in many-core architectures.

The authors explicitly conjecture that this skew in the literature is due to the lack of an open-source HW/SW framework that faithfully models and exposes the interfaces of LLC subsystems in modern HPC MPSoCs, which hinders research and adoption in practice. Confirming or refuting this conjecture would clarify research priorities and infrastructure needs for advancing LLC-focused control strategies.