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US 7,925,899 B2Granted
Method, system, and apparatus for runtime power estimation
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsMadhu Gumma, Anand Ramachandran, Eric Samson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Assertions of sentinel nodes within a device may be used to calculate device power consumption at runtime. These power estimates may be used to estimate a device temperature or leakage power, and/or may be used to make device throttling decisions.
Claims14
A device, comprising:
- a plurality of logic blocks each including at least one sentinel node, wherein the one or more sentinel nodes are to be asserted in response to each architectural event in a respective one or more of the plurality of logic blocks where a sentinel node is located;
- and
- power management logic coupled to the plurality of logic blocks to add a value to a power estimate upon each assertion of the one or more sentinel nodes, to estimate power for each logic block based on a total number of assertions for the one or more respective sentinel nodes for that logic block and to estimate power for the device based on the power estimate for each logic block, wherein the sentinel node comprises a node within the logic block, the sentinel node selected to represent the activity of the corresponding logic block.
A method comprising:
- monitoring each assertion of one or more sentinel nodes each in one of a plurality of logic blocks of a device;
- adding a corresponding power number to a device power estimate each time one or more of the sentinel nodes is asserted;
- estimating power for each of the plurality of logic blocks based on a total number of assertions of the corresponding one or more sentinel nodes for each logic block;
- and
- estimating power for the device based on the power estimate for each logic block, wherein the sentinel node comprises a node within the logic block, the sentinel node selected to represent the activity of the corresponding logic block.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.