Intel Corporation

Andrey Gabdulin

Efraim Rotem

Nadav Shulman

Russell Jerome Fenger

Esfir Natanzon

Deepak Samuel Kirubakaran

Marc D Torrant

Ashraf H Wadaa

Noor Mubeen

Michael Bitan

Lingjing Zeng

David Ben Shimon

Nir Levitin

Ryan Thompson

Eli Efron

Georgina Saborio Dobles

A processor core energy-efficiency core ranking scheme akin to a favored core in a multi-core processor system. The favored core is the energy-efficient core that allows an SoC to use the core with the lowest Vfor energy-efficiency. Such Vvalues may be fused in appropriate registers or stored in NVM during HVM. An OS scheduler achieves optimal energy performance using the core ranking information to schedule certain applications on the core with lowest V. A bootstrap flow identifies a bootstrap processor core (BSP) as the most energy efficiency core of the SoC and assigns that core the lowest APIC ID value according to the lowest V. Upon reading the fuses or NVM, the microcode/BIOS calculates and ranks the cores. As such, microcode/BIOS calculates and ranks core APIC IDs based on efficiency around LFM frequencies. Based on the calculated and ranked cores, the microcode or BIOS transfers BSP ownership to the most efficiency core.

Energy-efficient core voltage selection apparatus and method

In an embodiment, a processor includes a plurality of processing engines to execute instructions and a power management unit. The power management unit is to: control an operating frequency and a supply voltage according to a first voltage/frequency curve associated with a first temperature; and in response to a detection of a second temperature in the processor, increase the operating frequency to a second frequency based on a second voltage/frequency curve, wherein, at least one voltage of a first range of voltages, the second voltage/frequency curve specifies a higher frequency than the first voltage/frequency curve. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Hardware unit for controlling operating frequency in a processor

Growing community of inventors

Ramat Gan, Israel

Andrey Gabdulin