Apparatus, method, and system for improving power performance efficiency by coupling a first core type with a second core type

• Main Authors: BRETERNITZ, MAURICIO JR, LIU, WEI, WANG, CHENG C, WU, YOUFENG, HU, SHILIANG, BORIN, EDSON
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 20.08.2015
• Subjects: CALCULATING; CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION ANDCOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES [ICT], I.E. INFORMATION ANDCOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AIMING AT THE REDUCTION OF THIR OWNENERGY USE; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; PHYSICS; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS; TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINSTCLIMATE CHANGE

An apparatus and method is described herein for coupling a processor core of a first type with a co-designed core of a second type. Execution of program code on the first core is monitored and hot sections of the program code are identified. Those hot sections are optimize for execution on the co-designed core, such that upon subsequently encountering those hot sections, the optimized hot sections are executed on the co- designed core. When the co-designed core is executing optimized hot code, the first processor core may be in a low-power state to save power or executing other code in parallel. Furthermore, multiple threads of cold code may be pipelined on the first core, while multiple threads of hot code are pipeline on the co-designed core to achieve maximum performance.