Power shifting in multicore platforms by varying SMT levels

A method for managing power consumption in a microprocessor platform, the method comprising:

• setting a peak power level for power consumed by a multi-core microprocessor platform executing multi-threaded applications, the multi-core microprocessor platform comprising a plurality of physical cores, each physical core configurable into a plurality of logical cores, each logical core executing a hardware thread from the multi-threaded application;
• monitoring a number of currently executing instructions per second continuously for each one of the plurality of physical cores;
• and
• adjusting a simultaneous multithreading level in the physical cores in response to a power consumption level of the multi-core microprocessor platform exceeding the peak power level by decreasing the number of hardware threads executing for a plurality of physical cores in series based upon a number of currently executing instructions per second on each physical core from a lowest number of instructions per second to a highest number of instructions per second until a current power consumption level is less than or equal to the peak power level.

A method for managing power consumption in a microprocessor platform, the method comprising:

• setting a peak power level for power consumed by a multi-core microprocessor platform executing multi-threaded applications, the multi-core microprocessor platform comprising a plurality of physical cores, each physical core configurable into a plurality of logical cores;
• maintaining using a power consumption curve of multi-threaded application execution time versus power consumption and a performance curve of level of multi-threading versus amount of speedup in multi-threaded application execution for each physical core;
• arranging the plurality of physical cores into a plurality of bins, each bin comprising a subset of the plurality of physical cores, each physical core in a given bin having a common power consumption curve and a common performance curve;
• and
• adjusting a simultaneous multithreading level in the physical cores in response to a power consumption level of the multi-core microprocessor platform exceeding the peak power level by:
• selecting at least one bin from the plurality of bins;
• and
• adjusting simultaneous multi-threading levels for all physical cores in each selected bin.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing a computer-readable code that when read by a computer causes the computer to perform a method for managing power consumption in a microprocessor platform, the method comprising:

• setting a peak power level for power consumed by a multi-core microprocessor platform executing multi-threaded applications, the multi-core microprocessor platform comprising a plurality of physical cores, each physical core configurable into a plurality of logical cores, each logical core executing a hardware thread from the multi-threaded application;
• and
• adjusting a simultaneous multithreading level in at least one physical core by changing a number of hardware threads executing on that physical core in response to a power consumption level of the multi-core microprocessor platform exceeding the peak power level;
• wherein the step of adjusting the simultaneous multithreading level further comprises decreasing the number of hardware threads executing for a plurality of physical cores in series until a current power consumption level is less than or equal to the peak power level.