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US 7,353,414 B2Granted
Credit-based activity regulation within a microprocessor based on an allowable activity level
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorGeorge Chrysos
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A technique to control power consumption within a microprocessor. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to a technique to control power and performance within one or more microprocessors by enforcing a credit-based instruction execution rate algorithm.
Claims27
An apparatus comprising:
- a processing core, a processing rate of which is to be controlled, at least in part, according to a number of activity level credits, which corresponds to an extent to which the processing core has experienced a first activity level, wherein the number of activity level credits is to increase if the first activity level is below an average allowable activity level.
A system comprising:
- a microprocessor, an activity level of which being effected, at least in part, by a difference between a number of issued instructions and a modifiable allowed number of issued instructions, the difference corresponding to a credit level indicative of the number of issued instructions above the modifiable allowed number of issued instructions that the microprocessor can issue.
A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions, which if executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method comprising:
- detecting a first number of issued instructions per cycle;
- comparing the first number of issued instructions per cycle with a modifiable allowed number of issued instructions per cycle;
- reducing a number of credits by an amount corresponding to a number of issued instructions per cycle that the first number is above the modifiable allowed number;
- and
- allowing the number of credits to be increased by an amount corresponding to a number of issued instructions per cycle that the first number is below the modifiable allowed number.
2 more elements
A method comprising:
- changing a number of activity level credits based on an extent to which an activity level within a semiconductor circuit varies from an average allowable activity level;
- subsequently exceeding the average allowable activity level based on the number of activity level credits;
- and
- consuming the number of activity level credits by a number of instructions issued in a cycle that exceeds the average allowable activity level.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.