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Reducing the environmental footprint of electronics and computing devices requires new tools that empower designers to make informed decisions about sustainability during the design process itself. This is not possible with current tools for life cycle assessment (LCA) which require substantial domain expertise and time to evaluate the numerous chips and other components that make up a device. We observe first that informed decision-making does not require absolute metrics and can instead be done by comparing designs. Second, we can use domain-specific heuristics to perform these comparisons. We combine these insights to develop DeltaLCA, an open-source interactive design tool that addresses the dual challenges of automating life cycle inventory generation and data availability by performing comparative analyses of electronics designs. Users can upload standard design files from Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software and the tool will guide them through determining which one has greater carbon footprints. DeltaLCA leverages electronics-specific LCA datasets and heuristics and tries to automatically rank the two designs, prompting users to provide additional information only when necessary. We show through case studies DeltaLCA achieves the same result as evaluating full LCAs, and that it accelerates LCA comparisons from eight expert-hours to a single click for devices with ~30 components, and 15 minutes for more complex devices with ~100 components.
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Degrading Data to Save the Planet
Storage capacity demand is projected to grow exponentially in the coming decade and so will its contribution to the overall carbon footprint of computing devices. In recent years, cloud providers and device vendors have substantially reduced their carbon impact through improved power consumption and product distribution. However, by 2030, the manufacturing of flash-based storage devices will account for 1.7% of carbon emissions in the world. Therefore, reducing production-related carbon emissions of storage is key to sustainability in computing devices. We present Sustainability-Oriented Storage (SOS), a new host-device co-design for personal storage devices, which opportunistically improves storage sustainability by: (1) targeting widely-produced flash-based personal storage devices; (2) reducing hardware production through optimizing bit density in existing materials, up to 50%; and (3) exploiting an underutilized gap between the effective lifespan of personal devices and longer lifespan of their underlying flash. SOS automatically stores low-priority files, occupying most personal storage capacities, on high-density flash memories, currently designated for nearline storage. To avoid data loss, low-priority files are allowed to slightly degrade in quality over time. Switching to high-density memories, which maximize production material utilization, reduces the overall carbon footprint of personal storage devices.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2154771
- PAR ID:
- 10494788
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 19th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems
- ISBN:
- 9798400701955
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 61 to 69
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Providence RI USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3593856.3595896
