Systems, methods and devices for standby power savings

• US 10,642,651 B2
• Filed: 06/23/2016
• Issued: 05/05/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Cooper, Barnes
• Primary Examiner(s): Leibovich, Yair
• Application Number:
  US15/191,283
• Publication Number:
  US 20170371738A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,412 Days
• Field of Search: 714 15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/329 by task scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4893 taking into account power or heat criteria power management in computers in general G06F1/3203; thermal management in computers in general G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A power delivery system of a computing system that is on alternating current (AC) power limits software administrative tasks to a system-controlled and tunable broadcast window. This window limitation allows a computing system to enter and stay in low-power states without variable disturbances from administrative functions that can be relegated to the window. For example, maintenance is restricted until the computing system broadcasts a notification. Legacy software and devices that do not understand these notifications can be told the AC power is not present nominally, and then be notified of AC power presence during maintenance intervals.

Claims

1. A system for managing maintenance activities on system on a chip (SoC), the system comprising:

a processor configured to;

restrict maintenance activities from occurring during a low-power state when not in a maintenance window;

determine to send a notification of the maintenance window;

generate a maintenance window notification, wherein to generate the maintenance window notification comprises to communicate to legacy devices that alternating current (AC) is present when inside of the maintenance window; and

when a maintenance action occurs during the maintenance window,

transition the system to an active state; and

perform the maintenance action.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a graphics interface and a central processing unit (CPU) interface, both interfaces configured to provide power state information through an application programming interface (API).

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising an operating system interface, the operating system interface configured to provide power state information.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a notification interface configured to receive registrations for notifications of the maintenance window.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the notification interface is configured to trigger at a specific time, trigger on a network event, periodically trigger based on a period or periodically trigger based on a percentage of time for a maintenance window.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein to restrict the maintenance activities from occurring further comprises the processor to communicate to the legacy devices that the AC is not present when outside of the maintenance window.

7. An apparatus of a computing system configured to provide a maintenance window, the apparatus comprising:

a processor configured to;

select the maintenance window for maintenance activities of the computing system;

detect an idle state of the computing system outside of the maintenance window;

transition devices of the computing system to a low-power device state;

transition a central processing unit of the computing system to a low-power C state;

transition the computing system to a low-power platform state;

restrict maintenance activities from occurring until within the maintenance window, wherein to restrict the maintenance activities from occurring further comprises the processor to communicate to unregistered systems that alternating current (AC) is not present when outside of the maintenance window;

register one or more systems for notification of the maintenance window through an application programming interface (API); and

notify the one or more systems of the maintenance window.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to regenerate the maintenance window notification further comprises the processor to communicate to the unregistered systems that the AC is present when inside of the maintenance window.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the low-power device state is a runtime D3 (RTD3) state.

10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the low-power platform state is a C10 state.

11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to select the maintenance window further comprises the processor to select a periodic maintenance window.

12. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to select the maintenance window further comprises the processor to select a trigger based maintenance window.

13. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to:

transition the computing system to an active state during the maintenance window; and

perform maintenance activities during the maintenance window.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein to transition the computing system to the active state further comprises the processor to:

transition devices of the computing system to a runtime D0 (RTD0) state;

transition a central processing unit of the computing system to a C0 state; and

transition the computing system to a C0 platform state.

15. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by a processor to perform power management operations of a system on a chip (SoC), the operations, when executed by the processor, to perform a method, the method comprising:

transitioning the SoC to a low-power state;

setting a maintenance window load, the maintenance window load representing a percentage of time in which to allow maintenance windows;

restricting maintenance activities from occurring during the low-power state when not in a maintenance window;

determining to send a notification of the maintenance window;

generating a maintenance window notification; and

when a maintenance action occurs during the maintenance window,

transitioning the SoC to an active state; and

performing the maintenance action.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein determining to send the notification of the maintenance window further comprises triggering the maintenance window on an event.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein triggering the maintenance window on the event further comprises receiving a network event trigger.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein triggering the maintenance window on the event further comprises receiving a periodic trigger.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, further comprising setting a maintenance window duration.

20. The computer program product of claim 15, further comprising providing the notification to an operating system.

21. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein an operating system is configured to provide an application programming interface (API) to allow registration for notification of the maintenance window.