Power monitoring for a processing platform

Power monitoring circuitry to monitor a system power profile of processing tasks executing on a processing platform, the power monitoring circuitry comprising:

• an input to receive, from the processing platform, a processing system signal indicating a power being consumed by the processing platform;
• and
• a counter to store a count value corresponding to an accumulated number of times that a warning threshold condition associated with a warning threshold value is satisfied by the received processing system signal in a count-accumulation time interval;
• wherein the count value is supplied to a power control circuit of the processing platform via a bus in response to a read request from the power control circuit, the power control circuit being responsive to the count value to control a performance level of the processing platform;
• and
• wherein when the count value is determined to be approaching saturation, the power control circuit is arranged to at least one of:
• increase a reading rate or adjust the warning threshold value to reduce a likelihood of saturation occurring.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processing platform including a power control circuit;
• and
• power monitoring circuitry coupled to the processing platform, the power monitoring circuitry including:
• an input to receive, from the processing platform, a processing system signal indicating a power being consumed by the processing platform;
• a counter to store a count value corresponding to an accumulated number of times that a warning threshold condition associated with a warning threshold value is satisfied by the received processing system signal in a count-accumulation time interval, wherein the count value is supplied to the power control circuit of the processing platform;
• a critical level comparator to compare the processing system signal with a critical threshold value and to determine if a critical threshold condition is triggered;
• and
• throttle signal output circuitry to assert a throttle signal to the processing platform to activate a power-reducing feature of one or more components of the processing platform when the critical level comparator indicates that the critical threshold condition is triggered;
• wherein the power control circuit is to:
• determine to increase an operating frequency of at least one processor of the processing platform based on the count value and an average power of the processing platform;
• and
• control the increase in the operating frequency based on a rate of assertion of the throttle signal.

Power monitoring circuitry to monitor a system power profile of processing tasks executing on a processing platform, the power monitoring circuitry comprising:

• an input to receive from the processing platform, a processing system signal indicating a power being consumed by the processing platform;
• and
• a counter to store a count value corresponding to an accumulated number of times that a warning threshold condition associated with a warning threshold value is satisfied by the received processing system signal in a count-accumulation time interval, wherein the count value is supplied to a power control circuit of the processing platform via a bus, the power control circuit being responsive to the count value to control a performance level of the processing platform;
• a critical level comparator to compare the processing system signal with a critical threshold value and to determine if a critical threshold condition is triggered;
• throttle signal output circuitry to assert a throttle signal to the processing platform to activate a power-reducing feature of one or more components of the processing platform when the critical comparator indicates that the critical threshold condition is triggered;
• and
• a debouncer to control a debounce time corresponding to a minimum duration for which the processing system signal is to sustain traversal of the critical threshold value to trigger output of the throttle signal.