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In this paper, we present the first automated system-level analysis of multicore CPUs based on ARMv8 64-bit architecture (8-core, 28nm X-Gene 2 micro-server by AppliedMicro) when pushed to operate in scaled voltage conditions. We report detailed system-level effects including SDCs, corrected/uncorrected errors and application/system crashes. Our study reveals large voltage margins (that can be harnessed for energy savings) and also large V_min variation among the 8 cores of the CPU chip, among 3 different chips (a nominal rated and two sigma chips), and among different benchmarks.

Apart from the V_min analysis we propose a new composite metric (severity) that aggregates the behavior of cores when undervolted and can support system operation and design protection decisions. Our undervolting characterization findings are the first reported analysis for an enterprise class 64-bit ARMv8 platform and we …