US 9,285,858 B2 · Methods for monitoring and adjusting performance of a mobile computing device

Abstract

Methods are provided for monitoring and adjusting performance of a mobile computing device having a windowing system. The windowing system is advantageously employed for both purposes. It generates performance data related to an application executed by a processor of the device and provides the performance data to a DFVS module of the device, which in turn determines the operating point of the device based on that data. As a consequence, the DFVS refrains from scaling-down the operating frequency of the processor in certain cases wherein idleness of the processor might provoke such a scale-down by a DVFS module that was informed only of application-agnostic performance data. The avoidance of inappropriate scale-downs may, for instance, improve the perceived smoothness of a progression of images presented on a display unit of the device.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A method for managing energy consumption of a mobile computing device by means of a Dynamic Voltage/Frequency Scaling (DVFS) module of the device, the method comprising:

the DVFS module obtaining generated application-based performance data related to execution of an application by a processor of the device, the application-based performance data generated by:
obtaining temporal data from the application including at least one of a time-point at which the application started performing a task and a time-point at which the application completed performing the task,
computing a time increment related to the application's performance of the task, based on the temporal data,
comparing the computed time increment to a target time increment, and
at least one of:
generating a flag based on whether the computed time increment exceeds the target time increment and incrementing a running count of occasions when the computed time increment exceeds the target time increment;
and
the DVFS module determining an operating point of the processor based on the performance data.

5 more elements

A computing device comprising:

one or more processors;
and
a memory connected to the one or more processors and containing:
processor-executable instructions for an application, for execution on a corresponding processor of the one or more processors;
and
processor-executable instructions for a Dynamic Voltage/Frequency Scaling (DVFS) module that, when executed, cause the DVFS module to:
obtain application-based performance data related to execution of the application on the corresponding processor;
obtain application-agnostic performance data;
detect whether the corresponding processor is idle, based on the application-agnostic performance data;
and
determine an operating point of said processor that maintains or increases the operating frequency of said processor, based on the application-based performance data, even if said processor is detected to be idle,
wherein the memory further contains processor-executable instructions for a windowing system, and wherein the instructions that cause the DVFS module to obtain the application-based performance data cause the DVFS module to obtain said data from the windowing system by obtaining temporal data from the application including at least one of a time-point at which the application started performing a task and a time-point at which the application completed performing the task.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Methods for monitoring and adjusting performance of a mobile computing device

Life of this patent

Methods for monitoring and adjusting performance of a mobile computing device

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims16