Operating-system directed power reduction

Yung-Hsiang Lu, Luca Benini, Giovanni De Micheli

Abstract: this paper presents a new approach for power reduction by taking a global, software-centric view. It analyzes the sources of power consumption: tasks that require services from hardware components. When a component is not used by any task, it can enter a sleeping state to save power. Operating systems have detailed information about tasks; therefore, OS is the best place for identifying hardware idleness and shutting down unused components. We implement this technique in Linux and show that it can save more than 50% power compared to traditional hardware-centric shutdown techniques.