On the energy complexity of Algorithms realized in CMOS, a Graphics Example

Abstract

A theory about the energy consumption of algorithms realized in CMOS, presented in related work, makes it possible to calculate the minimal amount of energy dissipated for the execution of an algorithm. The rendering of a dense dataset with three variants of the Volume Rendering algorithm wi11 be considered as an example of the methodology. The absolute lower bound of the energy consumption is calculated for the rendering of a dense 256"3 dataset using implementations of the algorithms in an 1um CMOS process. Predictions of the energy consumption in future CMOS generations are given as well.