Electronic computer providing power/performance management

• US 9,383,797 B2
• Filed: 01/09/2014
• Issued: 07/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (University of Wisconsin System)
• Original Assignee: Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (University of Wisconsin System)
• Inventors: Sen, Rathijit, Wood, David A
• Primary Examiner(s): Du, Thuan
• Application Number:
  US14/151,073
• Publication Number:
  US 20150192980A1
• Time in Patent Office: 908 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/329 by task scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5094 where the allocation takes 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

Computational resources of an electronic computer are monitored by predictors that establish predicted trade-offs between performance and power for a particular workload while the workload is being executed. A coordinator combines prediction values to identify a limited number of combinations of operating states of the computational resources, allowing operating states of the computational resources to be readily adapted during program execution based on a particular workload. The limited number of combinations of operating states are ideally Pareto optimal combinations.

Claims

1. An electronic computer providing dynamic power/performance management comprising:

a set of computational resources working together to execute a stored computer program, each resource capable of operating in a set of different states providing different combinations of electrical power consumption and speed of execution of a portion of a stored computer program;

predictors associated with each computational resource for monitoring the computational resource during the execution of the stored computer program to generate resource predictions describing electrical power consumption and speed of execution of a portion of the stored computer program at the different states of the computational resource; and

a coordinator receiving the resource predictions from the predictors to;

(1) combine the resource predictions into a set of system predictions describing electrical power consumption and speed of execution of the stored computer program by the computational resources working together at particular combinations of different states; and

(2) output at least selected system predictions and associated combinations of different states.

2. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the output system predictions are Pareto optimal combinations of different states with respect to electrical power consumption and speed of execution of the electronic computer.

3. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the predictors provide the resource predictions, and the coordinator repeats steps (1)-(2), at multiple intervals during execution of the stored computer program.

4. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the output is communicated to a display for viewing by a user for entry of a selection of step (2).

5. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the coordinator further implements a step (3) of accepting a selection among the output an associated combination of different states to control the computational resources to adopt the selected combination of different states.

6. The electronic computer of claim 5 wherein the coordinator further implements a step (4) receiving a desired operating condition of at least one of electrical power consumption and speed of execution of the stored program and evaluating the output-selected system predictions and associated combinations of different states against the desired operating condition to provide the selection among the associated states of the selected system predictions.

7. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the computational resources include memory cache and the different states provide different operating sizes of memory cache.

8. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the computational resources include a processor and the different states provide at least one of different processor voltages and different processor clock frequencies to the processor.

9. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the computational resources include serial communication pairs between computational resources and the different states provide different numbers of parallel serial communication pairs between given computational resources.

10. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the computational resources include non-cache memory and wherein the different states provide at least one of memory voltage supply and memory clock speed provided to the non-cache memory.

11. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the coordinator combines the resource predictions using a model of interaction between the computational resources reflecting an effect on speed of execution for any given computational resource on a speed of execution of a different computational resource.

12. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the electronic computer is a multicore processor and wherein the coordinator is a program stored in non-transient media executing on at least one core.

13. The electronic computer of claim 12 wherein the electronic computer is a multicore processor and wherein the coordinator is a program that is executed on a designated service processor.

14. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the computational resources are elements of multiple different processors.

15. The electronic computer of claim 1 wherein the predictors are nonintrusive to generate resource predictions without modification of the execution of the stored program.

16. A method of operating an electronic computer having:

a set of computational resources working together to execute a stored computer program, each resource capable of operating in a set of different states providing different combinations of electrical power consumption and speed of execution of a portion of a stored computer program;

predictors associated with each computational resource for monitoring the computational resource during the execution of the stored computer program to generate resource predictions describing electrical power consumption and speed of execution of a portion of the stored computer program at the different states of the computational resource; and

a coordinator receiving the resource predictions from the predictors to;

(1) combine the resource predictions into a set of system predictions describing electrical power consumption and speed of execution of the stored computer program by the computational resources working together at particular combinations of different states; and

(2) output at least selected system predictions and associated combinations of different states, the method comprising the steps of;

(a) executing a workload program on the computational resources;

(b) generating resource predictions by the predictors for different states of each computational resource;

(c) combining the generated resource predictions into a set of system predictions each describing electrical power consumption and speed of execution of the workload program for the computational resources working together at different combinations of different states; and

(d) outputting at least some of the system predictions linked to given different combinations of the different states associated with the system predictions.