Energy-efficiency of software and hardware algorithms

In this article, we compare the energy efficiency of hardware and software implementations of Heapsort and Dijkstra’s algorithm for route finding. The software implementations are written in C for Raspberry Pi, and the hardware implementations are crafted in Chisel for an FPGA. Our objective is to examine how we can fairly compare energy efficiency between hardware and software. These solutions are positioned to replace each other in operational contexts, necessitating a comparison of their whole-system energy consumption. This study seeks to identify circumstances where time and energy efficiency diverge, offering insights to guide hardware selection. Our findings serve as a step towards understanding the complex trade-offs in algorithm performance across different computational platforms.