To Do List

1. Initial Analysis

  • Catalog processor power management features
  • Analyze Linux power management policies

2. PowerProfiling

Results

Processor Features

  1. Intel Core 2 Duo
C-state Max Power Consumption Description
C0 (busy wait) 35 Watts (TDP) normal
C1 13.5 Watts either AutoHALT or MWAIT(C1); the latter gives you a way to wait on a memory location
C2 12.9 Watts can use MWAIT(C1), will process snoops
C3 7.7 Watts flush L1 into L2. monitors remain. all clocks are shutdown.
C4 1.2 Watts identical to C3, but if both cores do it, the core goes into deeper sleep.
C6 0? saves processor state to SRAM, voltage can go to zero

C1: HALT instruction puts you into C1/AutoHALT. MWAIT(C1) overview: basically like AutoHALT, but you can wait on a memory region (set up with MONITOR) this way.

Packate states Description
Stop-grant Entered if one core is in C2. Clock is running, and responds to interrupts.
Deep-sleep
Deeper-sleep
Deep power-down (C6) both cores have entered C4

Ref:

  1. Intel Atom
  2. AMD Athlon (for notebooks?)

ADA5000IAA5CU: The envelope is 31-89 Watts for the DVFS states. Stop-grant brings you down to 3 watts, but it doesn't look like there's a lot between there. This is a "desktop" processor.

Ref: [http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/33954.pdf