International Business Machines Corporation

Vikram Sharma

Frank P Novak

Kyriakos L Leontiades

Krishnamurthi Kannan

Christopher Dane Jones

Nathan J Lee

A system and method for managing power in a portable, pen-based notebook computer. The system and method provides for minimizing power consumption by collecting and interpreting power related data of various processing elements while hiding many of the details from the end-user. The system monitors, collects, and acts upon power-related data in a portable computer to maximize the amount of time the portable computer can be used between battery re-charging with minimal user intervention. The system has a plurality of independently controllable power planes which are selectively powered so that the portable computer consumes the minimum power necessary to perform a particular function and a plurality of central processing units (CPUs) operating asynchronously with respect to each other. The present invention is further comprised of an on/off glue logic for monitoring battery condition, user invoked functions, and system state and power management for controlling the operation of each of the CPUs as a function of the conditions sensed.

System for distributed power management in portable computers

A provides a system and method for managing power in a portable, pen-based notebook computer. The system and method provides a means for minimizing power consumption by collecting and interpreting power related data of various processing elements while hiding many of the details from the end-user. The system monitors, collects, and acts, upon power-related data in a portable computer to maximize the amount of time the portable computer can be used between battery re-charging with minimal user intervention. The system has a plurality of independently controllable power planes and a plurality of central processing units (CPUs) operating asynchronously with respect to each other. The present invention is further comprised of an on/off glue logic means for monitoring battery condition, user invoked functions, and system state and a power management means for controlling the operation of each of the CPUs as a function of the conditions sensed by a sensing means.

A digitizer tablet computer has a host processor connected to a service processor which, in turn, is connected to a digitizer controller and to a power subsystem microcontroller whereby primary control of a keyboard, a digitizer, and a power subsystem is off loaded from the host processor to the service processor. The host processor communicates with the service processor through an interface comprising a status register, an input buffer and an output buffer through which host commands and data are transferred. The digitizer produces coordinate data that is initially processed in the service processor before being passed on to the host processor. The host processor is interrupted to receive the processed data and executes in a tight loop until a predetermined amount of processed data is received.

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Pleasantville, NY, United States of America

Vikram Sharma