Platform and processor power management

• US 20100169683A1
• Filed: 12/31/2008
• Published: 07/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tahoe Research Limited (f/k/a Learndale Limited) (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Tai, Tsung-Yuan Charles, Wang, Ren, Bakshi, Sanjay, Maciocco, Christian
• Granted Patent: US 8,495,403 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/323
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3209 Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3215 Monitoring of peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/329 by task scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4418 Suspend and resume; Hibernate and awake
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

The present invention relates to platform power management.

Claims

1. An electronic device, comprising:

a host that may be in a lower activity state; and

a platform management unit (PMU) to manage a platform having components with tasks to be serviced by the host, wherein the platform may be in a lower activity state independent of the host'"'"'s lower activity state, the PMU to cause non-time-critical tasks to be serviced with tasks that cause the platform to wake-up to extend platform idle durations.

2. The device of claim 1, in which the non-time critical tasks comprise outgoing network communications.

3. The device of claim 1, in which the tasks causing the platform to wake-up comprise application tasks initiated with a timer.

4. The device of claim 1, in which the PMU is part of the host.

5. The device of claim 1, in which the PMU is part of a hub block apart from the host.

6. The device of claim 1, in which the platform components comprise peripheral components and network interface components.

7. A method comprising:

in a platform lower activity state, determining if there is platform activity to be serviced;

if there is no activity to be serviced, checking to see if an application task requires servicing; and

if an application task requires servicing, waking up a host and causing the application task to be serviced and while the host is still awake, servicing other tasks.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein servicing other tasks comprises checking to see if any other application timers may expire in a predetermined time duration.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein servicing other tasks comprises checking to see if any non time critical tasks are awaiting servicing.

10. The method of claim 7, comprising putting the platform back into the lower activity state.

11. The method of claim 10, comprising putting the host back to sleep after the tasks are serviced.

12. A method comprising:

receiving a task to be serviced by a host;

checking to see if the task can be put off for at least a break even duration; and

putting the host in a sleep state associated with the break even duration and delaying servicing of the task if the task can be put off for the break even duration.

13. The method of claim 12, comprising checking to see if other tasks need servicing before the break even duration and not putting the host in the sleep state if the other tasks need servicing before the break even duration.

14. The method of claim 12, in which the sleep state involves flushing cache associated with the host.