RU2685969C1 - Method of controlling power consumption in a heterogeneous system on a chip - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: electrical engineering.SUBSTANCE: due to disconnection of power of unused hardware components and its inclusion as required, with reduced efficiency of not completely used hardware components.EFFECT: providing lower power consumption in a heterogeneous system on a chip due to power control of separate hardware components of the system, which are not currently used, without blocking user space.3 cl, 2 dwg

Description

The invention relates to the field of electrical engineering, and in particular to methods of managing energy-saving modes of multi-core computing devices, and can be used in embedded systems based on computing devices, as well as in portable computing devices for various purposes.

There are several ways to control the power consumption of computing devices. One of the ways to control energy consumption is to measure the performance, temperature and power consumption of computational or peripheral nodes of a heterogeneous system using special sensors and redistribute the computational load between the nodes of the system. Internal sensors as well as external portable devices can act as special sensors.

There are ways of indirect programmatic control of energy efficiency by redistributing tasks between computational cores in a heterogeneous system or by controlling routers in a network system on a chip.

Practices are centralized and multi-level energy efficiency management with system synchronization. Depending on the characteristics of a heterogeneous system, one or another method of building an energy efficiency management subsystem is used.

The closest to the claimed invention is a method of energy management in a heterogeneous system on a chip, described in US patent 2017269652 (A1), which uses a special external portable computing device (portable computing device, PCD) with which they carry out several methods of thermal intelligent power management, this reduces unwanted workload migration, which can aggravate the generation of thermal energy in the processing component. This method is selected as a prototype of the claimed invention.

The disadvantages of the prototype method lie in its lack of effectiveness, namely in the use of a separate device, which is not always applicable in standard systems on the crystal. In addition to the prototype, the tasks of managing energy consumption during idle computing resources (hardware components) are not solved.

The technical result of the claimed invention is to create a more efficient way to manage power consumption in a heterogeneous system on a chip with less power consumption, allowing you to control the power of individual hardware components of the system that are not currently in use, without blocking user space and without using network channels, by turning off power supply unused hardware components and turning it on as needed, as well as by lowering produce flaxity is not fully used hardware components.

The technical result achieved by creating a method of managing energy consumption in a heterogeneous system on a chip, in which

- control, using the power domain 6, the state of their hardware components 8, while receiving and processing, using the power domain 6, on the basis of control commands to disable power consumption from the power management core 5, the signals generated by the power management unit 1, using the values of the registers set using the functions of the driver 4 to control the power consumption of the hardware components and the driver 3 of the power domains;

- transfer, with the help of control commands from the power management core 5, the power domains 6 and their hardware components 8 are switched on and off, while receiving and processing, using the power domains 6, the on and off signals from power management unit 1 formed based on the values of the registers of energy management unit 1 installed using the functions of the driver 4 to control the power consumption of the hardware components and the driver 3 of the power domains;

- control, using the subsystem 2 dynamic control and synchronization of frequencies and the driver 7 hardware components, the state of the hardware components 8, and form and send to the hardware components 8 through the drivers 7 hardware components, using the subsystem 2 dynamic control and synchronization of frequencies power supply domains 6, as well as form and transfer to the hardware components 8 the operating frequency on and off signals using the clock generator frequency control unit 9;

- using the hardware component driver 7, transfer the hardware component 8 from the active state first to the suspended state, in the absence of operations or actions performed by it, and then to the off state or back to the active state.

In the preferred embodiment of the method using the hardware component driver 7, the hardware component 8 is first transferred from the active state to the suspended state, in the absence of operations or actions performed by it, for hardware components 8 that do not have active child components, as well as for hardware components 8, whose child components can be ignored.

In the preferred embodiment of the method, if the system does not use all the hardware components 8 that are in the same power domain, the unused components are first transferred to the suspended state, then to the off state, and in the case of inactivity of all the hardware components 8 that belong to the same power domain , they transfer, with the help of the control commands of the power management core 5 through the signals of the power management block 1, this power domain 6 and its hardware components are in the "off" mode cients 8.

In the inventive method of energy management in a heterogeneous system on a chip:

dynamically control power consumption, while disconnecting the power domains and adjusting the operating frequency;

- reduce to the minimum clock frequency or turn off the power supply of hardware components;

- use a centralized single-level feedback control method;

- manage the power consumption of peripheral devices and computational cores of different architecture;

- there is no binding to the network communication channels and control;

- perform power management by the user and automated power management by the hardware system, while external interface controller drivers indicate when incoming data is expected to prevent power loss and to avoid data loss.

For a better understanding of the claimed invention, the following detailed description thereof is provided with corresponding graphic materials.

FIG. 1. General scheme of the method of controlling energy consumption in a heterogeneous system on a chip, made according to the invention.

Items:

1 - power management unit;

2 - subsystem of dynamic control and frequency synchronization;

3 - domain power management driver;

4 - driver power management hardware components;

5 - power management core;

6 - power domain of a heterogeneous system on a chip;

7 - hardware driver;

8 is a hardware component of a heterogeneous system on a chip;

9 - clock frequency control unit (PLL - Phase-Locked Loop).

FIG. 2. General scheme for switching modes and states of hardware components in a heterogeneous system on a chip, made according to the invention.

Let us consider in more detail the functioning of the claimed method of energy management in a heterogeneous system on a chip (Fig. 1, 2).

In the proposed method of controlling energy saving in heterogeneous on-chip systems, a centralized feedback control system is used for hardware components with different architectures and designations without using network channels.

There are several states of a heterogeneous system on a chip: working state, waiting state, deep sleep state. In working condition, the hardware components 8 support operating modes on and off. In enabled mode, hardware component 8 may be active, paused or inactive.

Each hardware component 8 is included in the power domain 6, which controls the state of the hardware components and processes the request to disable power consumption from the power management unit 1, the hardware power management driver 4, and the power domain driver 3.

By means of control signals for resetting, isolating and turning on the power domains 6 included in the power management unit 1 and the power management core control commands 5, the power domains 6 and the hardware components 8 are switched to on and off (Fig. 2). If the system does not use all the hardware components 8 from one power domain 6, domain 6 is switched to the “off” mode.

The state of the hardware components 8 is controlled jointly with the subsystem of dynamic 2 control and frequency synchronization and the driver 7 of the hardware components. Using the subsystem 2 dynamic control and synchronization of frequencies set the operating frequency within the power domain 6 and produce switching on / off frequencies using the block 9 frequency control clock generator. Dynamic frequency control allows you to flexibly adjust the operating frequencies of hardware components and power domains.

With the help of the hardware component driver 7, the hardware component 8 is transferred to the suspended state, in the absence of operations and actions performed by it (the component is in the “idle” state). The “transition to idle state” and “suspend” functions are performed only for hardware components 8 that do not have “active” child components or whose child components can be ignored. After executing the function "transition to the state of suspended" call the function "off", which saves the current state and turns off the power, or the function "resume operation (transition to active state), which restores the power supply and loads the required state.

In the inventive method of energy management:

- hardware components 8 enter the power saving state (turned off or suspended) during system operation, independently of other energy management processes;

- energy saving of child hardware components 8 depends on the parent;

- the algorithm for controlling the energy saving of hardware components depends on its type and method of communication with it. For example, the power saving control algorithm depends on the type of bus to which hardware component 8 is connected, so operations are required for that bus.

For the operation of the claimed method, the synchronous operation of the following software subsystems is important: the driver 7 of the hardware component, the driver of the corresponding hardware subsystem and the power management core, while:

- control algorithms for “suspending” and “renewing” the power supply of hardware components function without loss of data and interruptions in service;

- the power management core calls handlers for hardware components;

- an important stage of transition to a state of low power consumption is “transition to the state of suspended”;

- after the implementation of the function "transition to the suspended state", the "shutdown" function (preserving the current state and turning off the power) or the "resume operation (transition to the active state)" (which restores the power supply and loads the required state) is called;

- the power management core monitors the activity of each hardware component 8;

- implementation of the model of transition to quiescent states (shutdown, suspension), saving the current state and reducing power consumption for each type of hardware component may differ;

- the functions of “suspension” and “renewal” are mutually exclusive (they cannot be performed in parallel);

- the functions “transition to idle state”, “suspension” and “off” are performed only for “active” hardware components 8;

- the “transition to idle state” and “suspend” functions are performed only for hardware components 8 that do not have “active” child components or whose child components can be ignored (the corresponding flag in the component driver).

- the function “resume” of the work should be performed only for “suspended” hardware components.

Although the above described embodiment of the invention has been set forth to illustrate the claimed invention, it will be clear to those skilled in the art that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible without departing from the scope and meaning of the claimed invention disclosed in the attached claims.

Claims (7)

1. The method of energy management in a heterogeneous system on a chip, in which - control, using the power domain 6, the state of their hardware components 8, while receiving and processing, using the power domain 6, on the basis of control commands to disable power consumption from the power management core 5, the signals generated by the power management unit 1, using the values of the registers set using the functions of the driver 4 to control the power consumption of the hardware components and the driver 3 of the power domains; using the control commands from the power management core 5, the power domains 6 and their hardware components 8 are switched on and off, while receiving and processing, using the power domains 6, the on and off signals from the unit 1 energy management, formed on the basis of the values of the registers of the energy management unit 1, installed using the functions of the driver 4, the energy management of the hardware components and the driver 3 of the power domains; - control, using the subsystem 2 dynamic control and synchronization of frequencies and the driver 7 hardware components, the state of the hardware components 8, and form and send to the hardware components 8 through the drivers 7 hardware components, using the subsystem 2 dynamic control and synchronization of frequencies power supply domains 6, as well as form and transfer to the hardware components 8 the operating frequency on and off signals using the clock generator frequency control unit 9; - using the hardware component driver 7, transfer the hardware component 8 from the active state first to the suspended state, in the absence of operations or actions performed by it, and then to the off state or back to the active state. 2. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that using the hardware component driver 7, the hardware component 8 is first transferred from the active state to the suspended state, in the absence of operations or actions performed by it, for hardware components 8 that do not have active children components, as well as for hardware components 8, whose child components can be ignored. 3. The method according to p. 1, characterized in that, in the case of using the system not all hardware components 8 that are in the same power domain, unused components are first transferred to the suspended state, then to the off state, and, in the case of inactivity of all the hardware components 8, which are included in one power domain, are transferred, by means of control commands of the power management core 5, through the signals of power consumption control unit 1, this power domain 6 and its hardware components 8 are switched off.

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