Original 45nm Intel® Core™ Microarchitecture

  Section 3 of 10  

Power Management Enhancements in the 45nm Intel® Core™ Microarchitecture

CHALLENGES

The Penryn family of processors was developed as a common core for the mobile, desktop client, workstation, and DP MP server platforms. The processor Thermal Design Power (TDP) in these segments ranges from 25 watts to 130 watts. Each platform has some common and some independent goals in power and thermal management. The challenge to the core development team is to anticipate the various requirements and design the support for all these platforms into the common core. For example, generic improvements such as reducing peak power and idle power consumption are applicable to all platforms. On the other hand, reducing energy usage during run time is a primary concern for the mobile and server platforms more than the desktop platform. Additionally, the mobile platform has tighter constraints on the peak power dissipation due to its form factor. Server platforms demand higher peak performance and are also capable of supplying and dissipating the power to support the peak demand conditions. The desktop platform usage mode has a lot of idle-ON time and standby time. Hence this platform has a specific requirement to reduce the idle and standby energy usage so that the end user will have a more energy-efficient, always-on always-available experience.

  Section 3 of 10  

Back to Top