Patent ID: 8255713

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving an exit latency for each of a plurality of link states for each of a plurality of links, including a first link and a second link, a first device being coupled to an interconnect via the first link and the second device being coupled to the interconnect via the second link; receiving a first latency tolerance for the first device and receiving a second latency tolerance for the second device; determining and communicating a latency tolerance value, wherein the determined latency tolerance value is based on the smaller of the first latency tolerance of the first device and the second latency tolerance of the second device; receiving a platform latency; based upon the platform latency and the latency tolerance for each device, determining a first link budget for the first device and a second link budget for the second device, the link budget for each device indicating an amount of time available for an exit from a link state for each device; and selecting one of the plurality of link states for each of the first link and the second link based at least in part on the link budget for each device.