Industry Expert Blogs

There have been many blogs and articles written on power management utilizing dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), a method by which a discrete voltage and frequency pair is chosen from a predetermined list based on an input requirement. For an example, read Don Dingee’s blog entitled “DVFS is Dead, Long Live Holistic DVFS.” Choosing this input requirement is where it all starts.

The most common input requirement is the required performance. Where do we find out the required performance? Well, the OS surely knows what tasks are running so it can estimate throughput. This throughput directly relates to the frequency and power state of one or more CPU cores. DVFS lets the OS reduce the frequency to match the desired throughput, while reducing voltage to the minimum level that supports safe operation at that frequency. But, how do we choose that voltage?

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