Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Gregory Nielsen

Manish K Shah

Donghwi Kim

Rajagopal Venkatachalam

Mika Juhani Rintamaeki

Ajit Justin

Francisco Cantu De La Garza

Chau Van Ho

Timothy Allen Jakoboski

Benjamin Francis Walker

Andrew Douglas Delano

Chee Kiong Fong

Tristan Anthony Brown

Suet Fong Tin

Samu Matias Kallio

Chirag Deepakkumar Shah

Sandeep Prabhakar

Geoffrey Jason Shew

Minsoo Kim

Jani Samuli Kuivalainen

Mark Allan Bellon

Geo John Palakunnel

Brendan W Flynn

Sneha Rajeev Sondur

Seppo Juhani Jarvensivu

Jason Marlan Pursel

Reshed Abdulkader Hussein

Thomas Arthur Sewell

Cho Yu Chong

Ergo Esken

Rajagopal K Venkatachalam

A method of adaptively controlling the distribution of power supplied by a charger of an electronic device between an energy storage device and one or more hardware elements is provided. The method includes determining whether current communicated between the charger of the electronic device and the energy storage device satisfies a charging condition, the charging condition based on one or more of a direction of the current communicated and a magnitude of the current communicated, determining whether consumed system power consumed by the hardware elements satisfies a system power condition based on a determined system power limit, and adjusting power consumption of the one or more hardware elements of the electronic device to consume a different consumed system power within a predefined range of system power limits, based at least in part on satisfaction of the charging condition and satisfaction of the power supply condition.

Adaptive power control for an electronic device

Systems and methods are described for reducing high tonality sounds by controlling the speed of a fan to avoid a range of fan speeds. A target speed of the fan is determined. When the target speed is in a lower portion of the range, a signal is transmitted to the fan to operate at a speed below the range. When the target speed is an upper portion of the range, a signal is transmitted to the fan to operate at a speed above the range. When the target speed transitions from the lower portion to the upper portion, or vice versa, a signal is transmitted to the fan to progressively transition between the speed below the range and the speed above the range, or vice versa. When the target speed is outside the range, a signal is transmitted to the fan to operate at the target speed.

Fan speed control for high tonality avoidance

A method of thermal and power control in a computing device includes, at the computing device, initializing a thermal module of the computing device, receiving data at the thermal module from a first component assigned to an interface of the thermal module, and sending an output to a second component from the thermal module based on the data. Initializing the thermal module includes detecting a presence of a plurality of potential components of the computing device; querying each of the plurality of potential components to determine capabilities of each component; in response to the querying, for each of at least a subset of the plurality of potential components receiving identification information for the component and, based on the received identification information, configuring one or more interfaces of the plurality of predefined interfaces of the thermal module to establish communication with the sub set of components.

Systems and methods for thermal system management

A system and method for controlling power consumption in a computing system. A burst power limit profile is established that permits consumption of power by the computing system to rise from a current power limit level to one or more elevated power limit levels that are above a thermal design power of the computing system. Upon expiration of the burst power limit profile, a thermal headroom of the computing system is determined based at least on one or more temperature limits. An attenuation power limit profile is then established based at least on the thermal headroom, such attenuation power limit profile having one or more reduced power limit levels that are lower than one or more of the elevated power limit levels of the burst power limit profile.

Computing system power burst limiting

A method is presented for selectively throttling subsystems of a battery-powered computing device. The method comprises determining an amount of power consumed a plurality of rest-of-platform (ROP) subsystems of the battery-powered computing device. A total amount of power consumed by subsystems of a battery-powered computing device is determined. The subsystems including at least a system on a chip (SOC) and the plurality of ROP subsystems. Responsive to recognizing a condition where the amount of power consumed by the plurality of ROP subsystems is above an ROP power threshold, and where the total amount of power consumed increases above a first throttling threshold, one or more ROP subsystems are throttled.

Selectively throttling subsystems of battery-powered computing devices

A computing device is provided, including a battery, a processor configured to receive electrical power from the battery via a voltage regulator, and one or more additional electronic components configured to receive electrical power from the battery. The computing device may further include a first current detector configured to detect a total battery discharge current. The voltage regulator may be configured to receive a first analog current signal from the first current detector, convert the first analog current signal into first digital current data, and transmit the first digital current data to the processor. The processor may be further configured to determine a difference between the total battery discharge current and an available electric current limit for the battery. In response to at least determining the difference, the processor may be further configured to adjust one or more performance parameters of the processor such that the difference is reduced.

Voltage regulator for computing device

A computing device includes a cooling device and a cooling activity monitor configured to assess a cooling activity of the cooling device. A cooling activity reporter is configured to, based at least in part on the cooling activity of the cooling device crossing a predefined cooling activity threshold, communicate a cooling activity indication to a resource manager of the computing device.

Computer cooling device activity indication

A thermal management system for a computing device often includes one or more internal heat pipes and conductive structures to move heat from one or more heat-generating components within the computing device to a heat exchanger. For an air-cooled device, one or more exhaust fans blow air across the heat exchanger to transfer heat from the heat exchanger to the air before it is exhausted out of the computing device. While operation of the exhaust fans may be necessary to maintain device temperature below one or more thresholds, exhaust fan operation may be optimized to maximize the user experience. The presently disclosed technology applies distinct exhaust fan speed and/or direction profiles for each of one or more exhaust fans within the computing device to maximize the user experience, particularly to reduce or avoid blowing hot air at the user's hand.

Dynamic exhaust fan operation to improve user experience

A dynamic peak power management system may prevent brownouts while improving performance and user experience compared to conventional techniques. A current threshold may be set below the maximum current capability (Imax) of a battery. If the current drawn from the battery exceeds the current threshold repeatedly, then system components may be throttled to decrease their peak power usage. If the current drawn from the battery stays below the current threshold for some time, then system components may be unthrottled to improve performance. This dynamic adaptable technique for managing peak power does not unnecessarily sacrifice performance by preemptively throttling system components to avoid the rare worst-case scenario where power spikes of system components perfectly align in time.

Dynamic peak power control

A method of thermal and power control in a computing device includes, at the computing device, initializing a thermal module of the computing device, receiving data at the thermal module from a first component assigned to an interface of the thermal module, and sending an output to a second component from the thermal module based on the data. Initializing the thermal module includes detecting a presence of a plurality of potential components of the computing device; querying each of the plurality of potential components to determine capabilities of each component; in response to the querying, for each of at least a subset of the plurality of potential components receiving identification information for the component and, based on the received identification information, configuring one or more interfaces of the plurality of predefined interfaces of the thermal module to establish communication with the subset of components.

The described technology provides an apparatus including a power supply unit (PSU) and a PSU control system stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processor units, the PSU control system encoding computer-executable instructions on the memory for executing on the one or more processor units a computer process, the computer process including receiving internal temperatures of the PSU over a duration of time, determining multiple exponential weighted moving average (EWMAs) of the internal temperature of the PSU for the duration of time, comparing the EWMA with a temperature threshold associated with the duration of time, and based at least in part on determining that EWMA exceeds the temperature threshold associated with the duration of time, limiting the output power of a charger using a charger current limit input to the charger. In an alternative implementation of the technology disclosed herein, the computer process includes receiving an initial condition of the PSU such as sensed PSU power level for a duration of time, determining multiple EWMA of the sensed PSU power level for the duration of time, comparing the EWMA with a sensed power level threshold associated with the duration of time, and based at least in part on determining that EWMA exceeds the sensed power level threshold associated with the duration of time, limiting the output power of a charger using a charger current limit input to the charger.

PSU control based on PSU temperature

Examples are disclosed that relate to allocating power to peripheral device interfaces. One example provides, at a computing device, a method, comprising obtaining a measurement of power consumption by one or more peripheral devices, and based at least on the measurement and on a maximum power tolerance of a power source, allocating to each respective interface a minimum portion of power output from the power source. The method further comprises rendering a remainder of the maximum power tolerance available for consumption by one or more processors, the remainder including the maximum power tolerance minus a sum of the minimum portions, where the remainder and a system portion of power output are available for consumption by the one or more processors, and where a performance attribute of the one or more processors is not throttled while total power consumption does not exceed a threshold power output from the power source.

Peripheral interface power allocation

The described technology provides a method for dynamically adjusting operating voltage of a device, including receiving device characteristics data related to a device, performing a margining test for the device to generate a performance curve characterizing variation of the device's current performance speeds at various operating voltages from expected performance speeds at the various operating voltages, determining an operating voltage for the device based on the device characteristics data and the performance curve, and adjusting the operating of the device based on the determined operating voltage.

Growing community of inventors

Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Gregory Nielsen