Purdue Research Foundation

Ning Ding

Yu Charlie Hu

A method for profiling energy usage in graphics user interfaces (UI) in handheld mobile devices is disclosed, which includes quantifying the central processing unit (CPU) energy drain of each UI update, quantifying the graphics processing unit (GPU) energy drain of each UI update, quantifying the number of pixels changed due to each UI update, identifying an UI update that consumes energy drain but results in no pixel changes to the displayed frame as a graphics energy bug.

Graphics energy profiling system and method

A method for profiling energy usage of invoking an application programming interface (API) by an application in a computing device. The method includes obtaining source code for the API, modifying each class by adding a callback function identifier field that is initiated to a unique value upon instantiation of each object that belongs to the class, identifying each location in the source code that posts the callback function for asynchronous execution by enqueueing each object instantiated from the class containing the callback function into the system callback queue, modifying the source code to log the callback function identifier of object at the location that dequeues objects from the system callback queue, modifying source code by adding two system logging function calls to log the callback function identifier of the dequeued object before and after executing the callback function, executing the application, and performing energy accounting of the asynchronous API calls.

System and method for energy profiling asynchronous API calls

System and method for profiling energy usage of API calls that asynchronously invoke functions

A method for profiling energy usage in graphics user interface (UI) update in handheld mobile devices is disclosed. The method includes mapping the pixel changes of each frame to a responsible UI update, identifying method invocations at all layers of the UI rendering stack, tracking asynchronous dependence across all layers of the UI rendering stack corresponding to each UI update by assigning a unique frame identification (ID) per frame refresh to track asynchronous dependence between UI updates and corresponding callbacks across all layers of the UI rendering stack, tracking information flow across a corresponding graphics processing unit (GPU) by using an OpenGL record-and-replay method, reconstructing the frames by replaying the OpenGL calls on the GPU during post processing, comparing frames to account for pixel changes, and tracking and attributing the energy usage during UI operations to individual UI updates.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

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