Patent ID: 7814485
Filing Date: 2010-10-12
Classification: G06F,Y02D

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: associating a callback routine with an idle execution path of an operating system (OS) of a processing system; in response to the OS entering the idle execution path, collecting idle time data with the callback routine; aggregating the idle time data over a sampling period that includes one or more time periods spent by the processor in an idle power mode; after expiration of the sampling period, calculating processor utilization for the sampling period, based at least in part on the idle time data; determining whether processor utilization has crossed a predetermined reporting threshold; in response to a determination that processor utilization has crossed the predetermined reporting threshold, automatically reporting the processor utilization to a power policy manager; determining whether performance details should be collected, based at least in part on a predetermined monitoring policy for the processing system; in response to a determination that performance details should be collected, automatically retrieving a count of instructions executed from a performance monitoring unit (PMU) of the processing system and automatically retrieving a number of cache misses from the PMU; generating performance data for the processing system, based at least in part on the count of instructions executed and the number of cache misses; reporting the performance data to the power policy manager; determining whether the processing system should be reconfigured, based at least in part on the performance data and a power policy profile for the processing system, wherein the power policy profile comprises predetermined policy entries which associate different performance metrics with corresponding platform reconfiguration directives; in response to a determination that the processing system should be reconfigured, automatically adjusting power consumption of the processing system by using the PMU to reconfigure the processing system, based at least in part on at least one platform reconfiguration directive from the power policy profile.