Architecture Carbon Tool v3: Enabling Sustainability-aware Silicon System Design Exploration
2026-06-15 • Hardware Architecture
Hardware Architecture
AI summaryⓘ
The authors discuss the growing importance of sustainability in designing semiconductor devices, alongside traditional concerns like power and performance. They introduce an updated tool called Architecture Carbon Tool v3 (ACT3), which helps researchers model and explore how design choices affect the environmental impact of silicon systems. ACT3 offers improved features that make it easier to study and optimize the carbon footprint of hardware architectures. The authors also highlight areas where further research can enhance sustainability-focused design tools.
Semiconductor devicesSustainabilitySystem architectureElectronic design automationArchitectural modelingDesign space explorationCarbon footprintPower and performance modeling
Authors
Vincent T. Lee, Bilge Acun, Zachary Lewis, Carole-Jean Wu
Abstract
As the carbon cost of manufacturing and operating semiconductor devices has come into sharper focus, sustainability has gradually emerged as a new system architecture design metric. Like power and performance modeling tools, enabling sustainability-aware silicon systems design and optimizations will require a new generation of electronic design automation and architectural modeling tools. Towards this end, we present an update to the Architecture Carbon Tool v3 (ACT3) which aims to provide an extensible and customizable modeling platform for research and advanced development to pave the path towards sustainability-aware architectural design space exploration. Compared to previous versions of ACT, ACT3 provides significantly richer modeling capabilities, enhanced collateral and analysis telemetry, and first order design space exploration capabilities. This technical brief provides an overview of these expanded capabilities and illustrates ACT3's basic utility across several case studies. Finally, we identify opportunities for research and development where we expect the research community can contribute towards continuing to improve sustainability modeling and design methodology for silicon systems.