Method and apparatus for power throttling of highspeed multi-lane serial links

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9519331-B2
Application number	US-201314051612-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 11, 2013
Priority date	Oct 22, 2007
Publication date	Dec 13, 2016
Grant date	Dec 13, 2016

Abstract

A method for managing the power consumption of an information handling system including a multi-lane serial link having a lane setting that identifies the number of active lanes in the multi-lane serial link. The method may include determining a number of lanes required for the multi-lane serial link based on one or more I/O devices connected to the information handling system, triggering a reduction of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link is greater than the determined number of lanes required, and automatically reducing power to the multi-lane serial link in response to the reduction of the lane setting.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for managing the power consumption of an information handling system comprising:
determining at regularly defined intervals a number of lanes required for a multi-lane serial link, wherein the multi-lane serial link is connected to a host associated with the information handling system, wherein the regularly defined intervals are based on initialization of the host, and wherein the number of lanes required is based on:
determining a number of one or more powered-on I/O devices connected to the multi-lane serial link,
determining a number of one or more powered-off I/O devices connected to the multi-lane serial link,
including in the number of lanes required lanes for the number of one or more powered-on I/O devices, and
excluding from the number of lanes required lanes for the number of one or more powered-off I/O devices;

triggering a reduction of a lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link is greater than the determined number of lanes required, the lane setting based on the number of active lanes in the multi-lane serial link;
triggering a reduction of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if a powered-on I/O device is powered-off; and
automatically increasing the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if an additional powered-on I/O device is connected to the information handling system through the multi-lane serial link.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising reducing power to the multi-lane serial link in response to the reduction of the lane setting.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein reducing power to the multi-lane serial link includes eliminating power to unused lanes of the multi-lane serial link.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
triggering an increase of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link is less than the determined number of lanes required; and
increasing power to the multi-lane serial link in response to the increase of the lane setting.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising decreasing the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if a powered-on I/O device is removed from the information handling system through the multi-lane serial link.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the number of lanes required for the multi-lane serial link is performed by a boot monitor and wherein triggering of the reduction of the lane setting of the multi-link serial link is performed by the boot monitor.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the number of lanes required for the multi-lane serial link includes determining the type of the one or more powered-on I/O devices connected to the multi-lane serial link.

8. An information handling system comprising:
a host;
a multi-lane serial link connecting one or more I/O devices to the host;
the multi-lane serial link having a lane setting that identifies the number of active lanes in the multi-lane serial link; and
a baseboard management controller associated with the host configured to:
determine at regularly defined intervals a number of lanes required for the multi-lane serial link, wherein the number of lanes required is based on:
determining a number of one or more powered-on I/O devices connected to the multi-lane serial link,
determining a number of one or more powered-off I/O devices connected to the multi-lane serial link,
including in the number of lanes required lanes for the number of one or more powered-on I/O devices, and
excluding from the number of lanes required lanes for the number of one or more powered-off I/O devices;

trigger a reduction of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link is greater than the determined number of lanes required, the regularly defined intervals based on initialization of the host;
trigger a reduction of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if a powered-on I/O device is powered-off; and
automatically increase the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if an additional powered-on I/O device is connected to the host through the multi-lane serial link.

9. The information handling system of claim 8 , wherein the baseboard management controller reduces power to the multi-lane serial link in response to the reduction of the lane setting.

10. The information handling system of claim 9 , wherein reducing power to the multi-lane serial link includes eliminating power to unused lanes of the multi-lane serial link.

11. The information handling system of claim 9 , wherein the baseboard management controller triggers an increase of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link is less than the determined number of lanes required and increases power to the multi-lane serial link in response to the increase of the lane setting.

12. The information handling system of claim 8 , wherein the baseboard management controller decreases the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if the number of the one or more powered-on I/O devices connected to the host through the multi-lane serial link is decreased.

13. The information handling system of claim 8 , wherein the baseboard management controller determines a bandwidth requirement of the one or more powered-on I/O devices connected to the host through the multi-lane serial link based on the number of the one or more powered-on I/O devices.

14. The information handling system of claim 8 , wherein the baseboard management controller determines a bandwidth requirement of the one or more powered-on I/O devices connected to the host through the multi-lane serial link based on the type of the one or more powered-on I/O devices.

15. A computer program product comprising computer executable instructions, stored on a non-transitory tangible computer readable medium, for managing the power consumption of a multi-lane serial link having a lane setting that identifies the number of active lanes in the multi-lane serial link, the instructions comprising:
instructions for determining at regularly defined intervals a number of lanes required for the multi-lane serial link, wherein the regularly defined intervals are based on initialization of the host, and wherein the number of lanes required is based on:
determining a number of one or more powered-on I/O devices connected to the multi-lane serial link,
determining a number of one or more powered-off I/O devices connected to the multi-lane serial link,
including in the number of lanes required lanes for the number of one or more powered-on I/O devices, and
excluding from the number of lanes required lanes for the number of one or more powered-off I/O devices;

instructions for triggering a reduction of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link is greater than the determined number of lanes required;
instructions for triggering a reduction of the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if a powered-on I/O device is powered-off; and
instructions for automatically increasing the lane setting of the multi-lane serial link if an additional I/O device is connected to the host through the multi-lane serial link.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 , further comprising instructions for reducing power to the multi-lane serial link in response to the reduction of the lane setting.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein reducing power to the multi-lane serial link includes eliminating power to unused

Assignees

• Khatri Mukund
• Zaretsky Lee
• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Khatri Mukund
• Zaretsky Lee

Classifications

• G06F1/3215

  Monitoring of peripheral devices · CPC title

• Y02B60/1235

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• G06F1/3253 Primary

  Power saving in bus · CPC title

• Y02D10/00

  Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management · CPC title