Operating system (os) virtualisation and processor utilization thresholds for minimizing power consumption in mobile phones

A method of conserving processor power in a mobile phone, the mobile phone comprising a plurality of processing cores, the method comprising:

• awakening a first processing core from a low power state in response to a first operating system (OS) thread;
• processing the first OS thread using the first processing core;
• determining whether utilization of the first processing core over a first time period has exceeded a predetermined threshold;
• if utilization of the first processing core over a first time period has exceeded a predetermined threshold, awakening a second processing core from a low power state.

An electronic device comprising:

• a plurality of processor cores;
• and
• a hypervisor;
• wherein, when total power consumption of the plurality of processor cores over a predetermined time period is below a threshold level, the hypervisor allocates all processing tasks to a first processor core, and, when power consumption of the plurality of processor cores over the predetermined time period is above the threshold level, the hypervisor awakens a second processing core and allocates selected processing tasks to the second processing core.