Intel Corporation

Shaun M Conrad

Stephen H Gunther

Jeremy J Shrall

Selim Bilgin

Robert J Safranek

Krishnakanth Venkata Sistla

Ryan Donovan Wells

Xiuting C Man

Alon Naveh

Ohad Falik

Michael N Derr

Douglas Raymond Moran

Jay D Schwartz

Jawad Haj-Yihia

Christopher J Lake

William Knolla

Jared E Bendt

Janardhan Lavakumar

Sm M Rahman

Efraim Rotem

Avinash N Ananthakrishnan

Christopher P Mozak

Mikal Hunsaker

Inder M Sodhi

Nir Rosenzweig

James B Crossland

Russell Jerome Fenger

Lily Pao Looi

Anil Aggarwal

Yoni Aizik

Zhenyu Zhu

Esfir Natanzon

Tomer Ziv

Gaurav Khanna

Bryan L Spry

Philip R Lehwalder

Arik Gihon

Yevgeni Sabin

Hem Doshi

Nimrod Angel

Ido Melamed

Yoav Ben-Raphael

Chen Ranel

Natanel Abitan

Dhinesh Sasidaran

Jared W Havican

Rahul Seth

Avinash N Ananthakrishan

Navtej Singh

Justin Madigan

Madhu Thangaraj

Neena Conrad

Jeffery L Krieger

Robert Safranck

Reena Patel

Vijay Degalahal

Techniques and mechanisms for transparently transitioning an interconnect fabric between a first frequency and a second frequency. In an embodiment, the fabric is coupled to an end point device via an asynchronous device. One or more nodes of the fabric operate in a first clock domain based on a clock signal, while the end point device operates in a different clock domain. Controller circuitry changes a frequency of the clock signal by stalling the clock signal throughout a first period of time which is greater than a duration of three cycles of a lower one of the first frequency or the second frequency. After the first period of time, cycling of the clock signal is provided at the second frequency. In another embodiment, the asynchronous device enables the frequency change without preventing communication with the end point device.

Device, method and system for transparently changing a frequency of an interconnect fabric

Techniques and mechanisms for identifying a power state to be provided with an integrated circuit (IC). In an embodiment, evaluator circuitry of a system-on-chip is programmable based on multiple criteria which are each for a different respective power mode. Programming of the evaluator circuitry enables concurrent evaluations each to determine, for a different respective power mode, whether a detected state of the IC is able to accommodate said power mode. Results of the evaluations are communicated, in parallel with each other, to circuitry which selects one such power mode based on relative priorities of the power modes with respect to each other. In another embodiment, the evaluator circuitry comprises an array of circuit cells which are configurable each to perform a different respective evaluation based on a corresponding combination of a test condition and a detected condition of the IC.

Device, system and method to determine a power mode of a system-on-chip

An embedded controller is provided for a computer, including a processor, first one or more logic elements providing a serial peripheral interface (SPI) module to communicatively couple the embedded controller to an SPI bus as an SPI slave, and second one or more logic elements providing a platform environment control interface (PECI)-over-SPI engine, to build an SPI packet providing an encapsulated PECI command and send a notification to an SPI master that the packet is available.

Platform environment control interface tunneling via enhanced serial peripheral interface

Improved power control techniques for integrated peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) controllers are described. In one embodiment, for example, a processor circuit may comprise an integrated PCIe controller and logic to detect a power reduction trigger, disable the integrated PCIe controller, and remove power from the integrated PCIe controller based on a power removal setting for the integrated PCIe controller. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Power control techniques for integrated PCIe controllers

A processor is described having streamlining circuitry that has a first interface to receive information from a memory describing: i) respective addresses for internal state information of a power domain; ii) respective addresses of a memory where the internal state information is stored when the power domain is powered down; and, iii) meta data for transferring the state information between the power domain and where the internal state information is stored when the power domain is powered down.

Method and apparatus for efficient store/restore of state information during a power state transition

Techniques to cause a point-to-point link between system components to engage in a negotiation process that may lead to the link transitioning from an active state in which data may be transmitted between system components to a low power state where data may not be transmitted. The negotiation process may occur between each pair of nodes within an electronic system that are interconnected via point-to-point link. The negotiation may ensure that there are no pending transactions or transactions that may occur within an upcoming period of time. Through this negotiation each component acknowledges and agrees to transition the link to the low power state.

Techniques for entering a low-power link state

A processor includes at least one core, a power control unit, and a first interconnect to couple with a peripheral controller. The first interconnect is to provide a first uni-directional communication path for communication of first power management data from the processor to the peripheral controller. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Interconnect to communicate information uni-directionally

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a processor having a plurality of cores each to execute instructions, a non-volatile storage to store maximum peak operating frequency values each a function of a given number of active cores, a configuration storage to store frequency limits each corresponding to one of the maximum peak operating frequency values or a configurable clip frequency value less than the maximum peak operating frequency value. In turn, a power controller is configured to limit operating frequency of the cores to a corresponding frequency limit obtained from the configuration storage. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Controlling configurable peak performance limits of a processor

In an embodiment, a processor includes multiple cores each to independently execute instructions and a power control unit (PCU) coupled to the cores to control power consumption of the processor. In turn, the PCU includes a control logic to cause the processor to re-enter a first package low power state responsive to expiration of an inter-arrival timer, where this expiration indicates that a time duration subsequent to a transaction received in the processor has occurred. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Providing an inter-arrival access timer in a processor

Power gating control architectures. A memory device having at least a memory array and input/output (I/O) lines terminated on the memory device with termination circuitry coupled to receive a termination supply voltage (V) with power gating circuitry to selectively gate the termination supply voltage in response to a power gating control signal (VttControl) is coupled with a processing core coupled with the memory device, the processing core to selectively assert and deassert the VttControl signal.

Power gating for termination power supplies

Method and apparatus for efficient store/restore of state information during a power state

A method and apparatus for atomic frequency and voltage changes in the processor. In one embodiment of the invention, the atomic frequency and voltage changes in the processor is feasible due to the enabling technology of fully integrated voltage regulators (FIVR) that are integrated in the processor. FIVR allows independent configuration of each core in the processor and the configuration includes, but is not limited to, voltage setting, frequency setting, clock setting and other parameters that affects the power consumption of each core.

Method and apparatus for atomic frequency and voltage changes

In an embodiment, a processor includes a first domain with at least one core to execute instructions and a second domain coupled to the first domain and including at least one non-core circuit. These domains can operate at independent frequencies, and a power control unit coupled to the domains may include a thermal logic to cause a reduction in a frequency of the first domain responsive to occurrence of a thermal event in the second domain. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Performing cross-domain thermal control in a processor

In an embodiment, a processor includes at least one processor core and power control logic having energy usage logic to predict an energy usage of the processor and a voltage regulator coupled to the processor, during a low power period according to a first voltage regulator control mode and a second voltage regulator control mode, and to control the voltage regulator based at least in part on the predicted energy usage. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Apparatus and method to manage energy usage of a processor

Growing community of inventors

Cornelius, OR, United States of America

Shaun M Conrad