Methods and systems for operating multi-core processors

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9696771-B2
Application number	US-201314100483-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 9, 2013
Priority date	Dec 17, 2012
Publication date	Jul 4, 2017
Grant date	Jul 4, 2017

Abstract

A method of operating a system on chip (SoC) includes determining to switch from a selected low-power core among a plurality of low-power cores to a high-performance core among a plurality of high-performance cores, counting the number of high-performance cores that are operating among a plurality of high-performance cores, determining a maximum operating frequency of the plurality of high-performance cores based on the counted number, and switching from the selected low-power core to the selected high-performance core based on the determined maximum operating frequency.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
determining to switch from a selected low-power core among a plurality of low-power cores to a high-performance core among a plurality of high-performance cores;
counting a number of high-performance cores that are operating among the plurality of high-performance cores;
determining a maximum operating frequency of the plurality of high-performance cores based on the counted number; and
switching from the selected low-power core to a selected high-performance core of the plurality of high-performance cores based on the determined maximum operating frequency, wherein the switching from the selected low-power core to the selected high-performance core comprises:
storing context of the selected low-power core in a memory;
powering on the selected high-performance core;
powering on an L2 cache of the selected high-performance core;
loading the context of the selected low-power core from the memory to the selected high-performance core; and
powering off the selected low-power core.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining to switch from the selected low-power core to the selected high-performance core comprises:
measuring a central processing unit (CPU) load of the selected low-power core; and
determining to switch from the selected low-power core to the selected high-performance core when the CPU load exceeds a threshold value.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
assigning a task to the selected low-power core;
measuring a central processing unit (CPU) load of the selected low-power core assigned with the task; and
adjusting an operating frequency of the selected low-power core based on the CPU load of the selected low-power core.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
measuring a central processing unit (CPU) load of the selected high-performance core; and
switching from the selected high-performance core to a low-power core when the CPU load of the selected high-performance core is equal to or less than a threshold value.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the maximum operating frequency comprises setting the maximum operating frequency of the selected high-performance core to a maximum value among a plurality of predetermined maximum operating frequencies when the counted number is zero.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determined maximum operating frequency of the plurality of high-performance cores is in inverse proportion to the counted number.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising;
measuring a temperature of each of the plurality of high-performance cores; and
switching from the selected high-performance core to the selected low-power core based on the temperature.

8. A non-transitory computer readable recording medium for comprising an executable program which, when executed by a processor, performs the method of claim 1 .

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Park Kang Nam
• Ryu Eui Youl
• Kim Young Lak
• Lee Woo Sung
• Lee Jae Cheol
• Hwang Seung Kon

Classifications

• Y02B60/1217

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• G06F9/5094

  where the allocation takes into account power or heat criteria (power management in computers in general G06F1/3203; thermal management in computers in general G06F1/206) · CPC title

• Y02B60/142

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• G06F1/3287

  by switching off individual functional units in the computer system · CPC title

• Y02B60/1282

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic