APPARATUS AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING POWER CONSUMPTION OF GRAPHIC PROCESSING UNIT (GPU) RESOURCES

• US 20160062445A1
• Filed: 06/12/2015
• Published: 03/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: CHOI, Yoonseo, JANG, Choonki, PARK, Haewoo, YOO, Donghoon, YU, Hyeongseok
• Granted Patent: US 9,891,692 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/329 by task scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3836 Instruction issuing, e.g. dynamic instruction scheduling or out of order instruction execution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3858 Result writeback, i.e. updating the architectural state or memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/46 Multiprogramming arrangements
• 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 consumption control apparatus includes a resource selecting unit configured to select resources, whose power consumption levels are to be determined, from among resources of a graphic processing unit (GPU), a resource use information acquiring unit configured to determine whether the selected resources are used from a code block which is all or part of a program executed using the GPU, and a power consumption controlling unit configured to determine a power consumption level of the selected resource based on a determination result of the resource information acquiring unit and to control the power consumption level of the selected resources based on a determined power consumption level of the selected resources.

Claims

1. A power consumption control apparatus, comprising:

a resource selecting unit configured to select resources from among resources of a graphic processing unit (GPU);

a resource use information acquiring unit configured to determine that the selected resources are used from a code block executed using the GPU and to output a determination result indicative thereof; and

a power consumption controlling unit configured to determine a power consumption level of the selected resources based on the determination result and configured to control the power consumption level of the selected resources based on the determined power consumption level of the selected resources.

2. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 1, wherein the resource use information acquiring unit is further configured to extract a command included in the code block, to determine a resource executing an extracted command among the selected resources from the command, and to determine a determined resource as a resource used by the code block.

3. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 1, wherein the power consumption controlling unit is further configured to reduce a power consumption level while the GPU processes the code block with respect to an unused resource among the selected resources, based on the determination result.

4. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 3, wherein the power consumption controlling unit is further configured to reduce the power consumption level when a time needed by the GPU to processes the code block is greater than a threshold value.

5. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the resource use information acquiring unit further comprises a resource use information merging unit configured to merge information indicating that the selected resources acquired corresponding to the code blocks is used, and

the power consumption controlling unit is further configured to determine a power consumption level of the selected resources based on a merging result and to control a power consumption level of the selected resources while the GPU processes the code blocks based on the determined power consumption level.

6. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 5, wherein

when one or more of the code blocks use the selected resources, the resource use information merging unit is further configured to determine that all of the code blocks use the selected resources, and

when all of the code blocks do not use the selected resources, the resource use information merging unit is further configured to determine that all the code blocks do not use the selected resources and to merge resource use information thereof.

7. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 5, wherein the power consumption controlling unit is further configured to reduce a power consumption level while the GPU processes the code blocks with respect to an unused resource among the selected resources, based on the merging result.

8. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 7, wherein the power consumption controlling unit is further configured to reduce the power consumption level when a time needed by the GPU to processes the code blocks is greater than a threshold value.

9. The power consumption control apparatus of claim 1, further comprising, a processing sequence reordering unit configured to reorder a processing sequence in which the GPU processes the code blocks when the program comprises code blocks,

wherein the processing sequence reordering unit reorders the processing sequence so as to reduce a sum of changes in the power consumption level of the selected resources while the GPU processes the code blocks, and

the sum of the changes in the power consumption level of the selected resources is determined based on a number of changes of use/non-use of the selected resources by comparing information about the use/non-use of the selected resources acquired corresponding to the code blocks in a predetermined processing sequence.

10. A power consumption control method comprising:

selecting resources from among resources of a graphic processing unit (GPU);

determining whether the selected resources are used from a code block executed using the GPU and to output a determination result thereof; and

determining a power consumption level of the selected resources based on a determination result and controlling the power consumption level of the selected resources based on the determined power consumption level of the selected resources.

11. The power consumption control method of claim 10, wherein the determining of whether the selected resources are used comprises:

extracting a command included in the code block;

determining a resource executing an extracted command among the selected resources from the command; and

determining a determined resource as a resource used by the code block.

12. The power consumption control method of claim 10, wherein the controlling of the power consumption level of the selected resources comprises reducing a power consumption level while the GPU processes the code block with respect to an unused resource among the selected resources, based on the determination result.

13. The power consumption control method of claim 12, wherein the controlling of the power consumption level of the selected resources comprises reducing the power consumption level when a time needed by the GPU to processes the code block is greater than a threshold value.

14. The power consumption control method of claim 10, wherein

the determining of whether the selected resources are used further comprises merging information indicating that the selected resources acquired corresponding to the code blocks are used, and

the controlling of the power consumption level of the selected resources comprises determining a power consumption level of the selected resources based on a merging result and controlling a power consumption level of the selected resources while the GPU processes the code blocks based on a determined power consumption level.

15. The power consumption control method of claim 14, wherein

when one or more of the code blocks use the selected resources, the merging of the information comprises determining that all the code blocks use the selected resources, and

when all the code blocks do not use the selected resources, the merging of the information comprises determining that all the code blocks do not use the selected resources.

16. The power consumption control method of claim 14, wherein the controlling of the power consumption level of the selected resources comprises reducing a power consumption level while the GPU processes the code blocks with respect to an unused resource among the selected resources, based on the merging result.

17. The power consumption control method of claim 16, wherein the controlling of the power consumption level of the selected resources comprises reducing the power consumption level when a time needed by the GPU to processes the code blocks is greater than a threshold value.

18. The power consumption control method of claim 10, further comprising, when the code blocks are included, reordering a processing sequence in which the GPU processes the code blocks,

wherein the reordering of the processing sequence comprises reordering the processing sequence so as to reduce a sum of changes in a power consumption level of the selected resources while the GPU processes the code blocks, and

the sum of the changes in the power consumption level of the selected resources is determined based on a number of changes of use/non-use of the selected resources by comparing information about the use/non-use of the selected resources acquired corresponding to the code blocks in a predetermined processing sequence.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having embodied thereon a program for executing the power consumption control method of claim 10.

20. A power consumption control method for a graphic processing unit (GPU), the method comprising:

selecting a resource having a high priority for reduction of power consumption among GPU resources;

determining a code block from an application that uses the GPU;

extracting a characteristic of a code included in the code block;

acquiring resource use information for determining a power consumption level of the selected resource based on the extracted characteristic of the code;

determining the power consumption level of the selected resource based on the acquired resource use information; and

controlling the power consumption level of the selected resource based on the determined power consumption level.