About The Need to Power Instrument The Linux Kernel - Patrick Titiano, BayLibre
Channel: The Linux Foundation
Date: 2017-02-28

About The Need to Power Instrument The Linux Kernel - Patrick Titiano, BayLibre

A major issue the Community faces regarding power management is the lack of power data and instrumentation: dev boards miss probe points, SW PM code poorly instrumented, SoC vendors not sharing much power data. Therefore, when comes the power optimization stage, ad hoc/custom techniques are used over and over again. In addition to the lack of HW and SW instrumentation, power measurement equipment is usually expensive and not affordable for many developers. Not much can be done about HW instrumentation, but power instrumenting the Linux Kernel could definitively help. For instance, we could finally dynamically get the real platform power consumption, therefore enabling closed-loop power policies, power visualization apps, improved power models for nextgen SoC, etc. Motivations, challenges, and benefits will be discussed during this presentation, closing with a proof of concept.

About Patrick Titiano
Patrick Titiano has 17 years of engineering experience in embedded technologies. Patrick spent 9 years at Texas Instruments as a Power Management (PM) Expert. After 3 years as OMAP3 SW PM Architect (architecture, requirements, early prototyping), Patrick switched to a System PM Optimization role, tracking PM system issues of critical use-cases like Idle, MP3, Voice Call, Video Playback, 3D. Patrick also developed embedded diagnostic open source tools (“omapconf”, “cpuloadgen”) to debug/track power and performance regressions. In 2012, in association with ex-TI Linux experts, Patrick founded BayLibre, an Embedded Linux Consulting Company, to continue sharing its expertise with the Community. Patrick is used to train a wide range of audiences: engineers, customers, sales, marketing. More recently, Patrick was involved in Google ProjectAra, leading the SW Power Management Team.